- Canada to further cut international student, foreign worker permits
- YouTube launches new TV-focused tools for creators
- White Sox heading for worst season in MLB history
- Hong Kong democracy tycoon's son warns time running out
- New migraine drugs no better than cheap painkillers: big study
- Sean 'Diddy' Combs again denied bail in sex trafficking case
- Brewers clinch division title as MLB playoff race heats up
- US stocks dip despite larger Fed interest rate cut
- Man City held by Inter as PSG pinch win in Champions League
- All Blacks recall Beauden Barrett for Australia Test
- Spurs late show saves Postecoglou blushes at Coventry
- PSG snatch late goal to beat Champions League debutants Girona
- Gittens' late double gives Dortmund Champions League win at Brugge
- Man City blunted by Inter in Champions League stalemate
- Hidden talent: French Olympic star Marchand opts for disguise
- MrBeast named in California lawsuit over 'Beast Games' show
- Gauff splits with Gilbert as coach after 14-month run
- Hundreds of thousands at risk in Sudan's El-Fasher: UN
- Harvey Weinstein pleads not guilty to new sex crime charge
- Venezuelan opposition candidate says letter conceding election was coerced
- X update allows app to bypass Brazil ban: internet providers
- Arsenal's Odegaard faces lengthy injury absence
- India coal expansion risks massive methane growth: report
- China the top challenge in US history, top diplomat says
- Ronaldo's Al Nassr appoint former AC Milan boss Pioli
- Ainslie 'relieved' as British book place in Louis Vuitton Cup final
- Women's NBA will add 15th team in Portland in 2026
- Brazil fires need harsher punishment: environmental police boss
- Boeing to start large temporary furloughs amid Seattle strike
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill nine, wound 300
- 'Emergency' declared over falling UK butterfly numbers
- Stock markets, dollar slip before US rate decision
- Russian advance in Kursk 'stopped': Ukraine official to AFP
- UN members demand end to 'unlawful' Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories
- Snapchat pushes 'safer' platform image, but not everyone agrees
- So where does the oceans' plastic waste come from?
- Allied war heroes buried in Netherlands... 80 years on
- Marsh coy over Australia's choice to open alongside Head
- New London sculpture pays tribute to trans community
- Lebanon doctors tell of horror after pager blasts
- McIlroy eyes Wentworth glory after Irish Open collapse
- Italy seen overtaking France as world's largest wine producer
- Hezbollah vows vengeance on Israel for pager blasts
- Brook expects unified England after McCullum's white-ball takeover
- Kamindu Mendis century rescues Sri Lanka against New Zealand
- Two dead in botched armed raid on Russian retailer's office
- UK train drivers back govt pay deal to end strikes
- Man who copied French rapist says he deserves to punished
- Eriksen will wait to settle Man Utd future
- Former England striker Carroll signs for fourth-tier Bordeaux
BCC | 1.33% | 137.06 | $ | |
NGG | -0.46% | 70.05 | $ | |
CMSC | 0.02% | 25.055 | $ | |
RIO | -0.02% | 62.91 | $ | |
CMSD | -0.12% | 24.98 | $ | |
SCS | 0.71% | 14.11 | $ | |
RBGPF | 5.79% | 60.5 | $ | |
JRI | 0.45% | 13.44 | $ | |
GSK | -0.31% | 42.43 | $ | |
RYCEF | 1.37% | 6.55 | $ | |
BCE | 3.09% | 35.61 | $ | |
BP | -0.37% | 32.43 | $ | |
VOD | 0.49% | 10.23 | $ | |
BTI | -0.34% | 37.88 | $ | |
AZN | 0.06% | 78.58 | $ | |
RELX | -0.82% | 47.37 | $ |
Hostages' plight casts pall over Israel's Independence Day
On Israel's 76th Independence Day, victory feels far away for many agonising over the fate of dozens of hostages still held in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.
"On one side we're still here, my daughters are still here, my family's still here, and Israel is still here," said Lishay Lavi Miran, from the Nir Oz kibbutz community, less than a kilometre (0.62 miles) from the Gaza border.
"But it's not really independence because... Omri is over there," added the 39-year-old, referring to her husband who was kidnapped and taken to the Palestinian territory on October 7 alongside about 250 other hostages.
He is among 128 captives who remain in Gaza, 36 of whom the army says are dead.
On May 14 every year, Israelis celebrate the anniversary of their state's creation.
But the more than seven-month war in Gaza and the absence of the remaining hostages have cast a long shadow over the normally joyous day.
"Like in Pesach (Jewish Passover), I didn't feel it's really a holiday of liberation. I don't feel now that there is really something to be happy about," Lavi Miran added.
Batia Holin, from the neighbouring kibbutz community of Kfar Aza, expressed similar feelings, saying "there is no independence here".
Several Kfar Aza residents are still captive in Gaza.
Holin and other residents of the southern Israeli communities surrounding the border with Gaza have been evacuated since the October 7 Hamas attack.
"Even though I am in my country, I cannot be in my home and I will not be able to return for at least three years," Holin, 71, said. "What kind of independence is this?"
And in northern Israel, where there have been a regular exchange of fire between Israeli forces and Lebanon's Hezbollah, tens of thousands have been displaced.
"They can't go home and have become refugees," lamented Holin.
The unprecedented October attack saw militants surge through Gaza's militarised border and resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Israel responded with a relentless military campaign in the Hamas-run territory that has so far killed more than 35,100 people, according to the Gaza health ministry.
- 'Jewish national home' -
Israel is "a sovereign country where its citizens are refugees... It's terrible," Holin continued, recalling a brief return home to the community where more than 60 people were killed. She shut the door and left.
"That's it. I don't have a home anymore."
Israel was founded in 1948 on the vow of a "Jewish national home" with the promise of safety to Jews, six million of whom were murdered during the Holocaust.
Based on this promise, many migrated to the newly formed state, including Lavi Miran's grandparents who arrived from Libya and Azerbaijan.
For Palestinians, that period is known as the "Nakba", or catastrophe, marked on May 15 every year to commemorate the mass displacement of around 760,000 Palestinians during the war that accompanied Israel's creation.
During the Hamas attack, fighters ransacked Lavi Miran's home "and took a lot of things. Even after seven months, I can't touch stuff over there", she said.
"They trashed all the house. They threw all of our clothes."
But to her, the priority remains the return of the hostages. She has joined the regular protests by thousands calling on the Israeli government to reach a deal that would bring them back.
On Sunday, during a ceremony marking Memorial Day to commemorate fallen soldiers and civilian victims of attacks on Israel, army chief Herzi Halevi acknowledged he was "fully responsible" for the events of October 7.
"Hamas won the war, because they're not here," said Lavi Miran, referring to the hostages.
"Home, it's just when he comes back," she continued, referring to her husband Omri, a 47-year-old massage therapist.
"It's like a nightmare. They're in hell."
V.F.Barreira--PC