THEY both set out to celebrate peace and love.
But while Glastonbury was this weekend awash with support for Palestine, there was little if any recognition of the 378 people massacred by Hamas at the Nova music festival in Israel on October 7, 2023.
While Glastonbury was awash with Palestine support, there was little recognition of the 378 people killed by Hamas at the Nova music festival in Israel on October 7 2023[/caption]
Hostage Elkana Bohbot, right, with sibling Uriel before the October 7 attacks[/caption]
Amid a sea of Palestine flags waved by the crowds at Worthy Farm, punk performers Bob Vylan chanted, “Death to the IDF” and Northern Irish rappers Kneecap led a chorus of “F*** Keir Starmer”.
The victims of the atrocity nearly two years ago — which marked the onset of full-scale war — were all but forgotten.
Instead, here in the UK, its perpetrators were held up as heroes.
You would have had to look hard to spot a flag at Glastonbury honouring those killed or taken hostage at the Nova festival.
Unsuspecting party-goers there were slain amid a hail of bullets and rockets as waves of Hamas fighters swarmed across the border from Gaza.
Rockets blasted across the border from Gaza.
It became the scene of the biggest massacre at a music event in history.
Incredibly, festivals held since then have not only failed to acknowledge what happened at the Israel gig, but have at times celebrated the terrorists behind the devastation.
The attack on the event, as well as small villages and towns near the Gaza border on that same day, led to a conflict that has seen thousands of Palestinians killed as Israel continues in its quest to dismantle Hamas and return its hostages.
Lebanon and Syria have become different countries with the weakening of Hezbollah.
One member of the band Kneecap faces terror charges for allegedly waving the group’s flag at a London gig.
And the recent 12-day war between Iran and Israel has brought more death and destruction to both nations, yet Israel seems no closer to getting its hostages back.
‘Grief and pain’
The taken no longer feel like a key focus amid the fighting.
Of the approximately 250 people who were originally taken captive by Hamas, around 50 are still believed to remain in war-stricken Gaza over 600 days later.
Twenty of them are thought to be alive — nine were from the Nova Festival.
We want to emphasise that bringing back the remaining 50 hostages is the key to achieving complete Israeli victory. There will be no victory until the last hostage returns
Israel’s Hostages And Missing Families Forum
Slowly, as the Israeli army takes over increasing tranches of the territory, it is finding bodies of dead hostages.
Eight have been recovered so far this month.
On June 21, a military operation retrieved the remains of three people who had been taken captive — Yonatan Samerano, 21, Ofra Keidar, 71, and Sgt Shai Levinson, 19.
Israel’s Hostages And Missing Families Forum — which represents some of the hostages’ relatives — said: “Alongside the grief and pain, their return provides some comfort to the families who have waited in agony, uncertainty and doubt.
“We want to emphasise that bringing back the remaining 50 hostages is the key to achieving complete Israeli victory. There will be no victory until the last hostage returns.”
One of those caged in the tunnels is Alon Ohel, who is in desperate need of medical attention as shrapnel in his eye is slowly blinding him.
Throughout his ordeal, it is music that has kept him going, his mother Idit tells The Sun.
Alon started playing the piano when he was nine, with Elton John a particular hero and inspiration.
The British pop star’s music is likely being sung by the gentle 24-year-old in the tunnel dungeons of Gaza as he tries to keep himself sane.
Sir Elton has previously declared himself a fan of Kneecap — admitting he “loves everything about them”.
Alon was held with three other hostages, who were released in previous ceasefire deals.
They have told his mother about the nightmare he is enduring.
“Their legs were chained for many months, they were starved and sometimes they were badly beaten,” says Idit.
Wrecked and burnt out vehicles at the festival site[/caption]
“But at least they had each other. The three men Alon was held with have all been released.
“But we believe he is now on his own and, of course, we are so worried about it.
“The only thing that keeps me going is the hope that he will come out alive.”
MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!!
Donald Trump
There has been a new ceasefire deal on the table for many weeks, which could secure Alon’s freedom, but Hamas has refused to sign it.
Even though it would put an end to the horrendous suffering of the Palestinian people, it would mean them losing their hold on Gaza.
Just want them home
Yesterday morning, US President Donald Trump, who has said he is hopeful a peace deal could be agreed in the next week, highlighted the plight of the hostages on Truth Social, writing in bold capital letters: “MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!! DJT.”
The question for the Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his cabinet remains: Save the hostages and allow Hamas to keep hold of Gaza, or try to completely defeat Hamas and risk the loss of the hostages?
This is why the families of those still being held are so determined they never be forgotten.
They just want them home.
The hostages are rarely talked about any more in television coverage of the conflict.
In countries in the West, posters of them are torn down.
When Israeli forces took command of a Gaza-bound aid boat carrying climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, she claimed she had been “kidnapped”.
It was alleged she and other activists declined to watch footage of the October 7 horrors.
But the hostages are an ever-present reminder of Hamas’s cruelty and the fact that they are — whatever the BBC may or may not have called them — a terrorist group.
At Glastonbury this week, punk performers Bob Vylan chanted, ‘Death to the IDF’[/caption]
Northern Irish rappers Kneecap led a chorus of ‘F*** Keir Starmer’[/caption]
Windsor MP Jack Rankin has raised the case of Nova hostage Avinatan Or, 31, whose mother Ditza is British, in Parliament.
He was twinned with Avinatan’s family as part of the Hostages And Missing Families Forum UK, and met with them last December.
Avinatan’s kidnap, alongside girlfriend Noa Argamani, became front page news as they were pulled away from each other by terrorists who filmed it and put it on social media.
The politician says he is disgusted that there is apparent support for Hamas at Glastonbury and a failure to remember those murdered at Nova.
“The juxtaposition is quite sick, to be honest, and I put a lot of it down to a huge degree of naivety on the part of Western society,” says Jack, who hosted Ditza at the House of Commons in March.
“The reality is that if Hamas had the ability to, it would do the same to Western people at Glastonbury as they did at Nova.”
Earlier this year, Hamas released a harrowing propaganda video featuring Nova hostage Elkana Bohbot.
In it, he addressed his brother, Uriel, asking him to go to the White House and ask US President Donald Trump to urgently get him out.
Evyatar David, 23, is another musician who was kidnapped at Nova and is believed to still be alive.
We know from the hostages that have returned that they are in a tiny space — about one-and-a-half metres wide — underground, sleeping next to a hole in the ground that they use for the toilet
Evyatar’s brother Ilay
He was filmed alongside best friend and fellow hostage Guy Gilboa-Dalal in one of Hamas’s sickest stunts.
The pair were videoed locked in a car surrounded by terrorists at a hostage release “ceremony”, pleading: “Let us go.”
The footage was released to cause added torment to their desperate families.
In Gaza, captives have mainly been held underground, according to those who have now been freed.
‘They sing together’
“We know from the hostages that have returned that they are in a tiny underground space — about one-and-a-half metres wide — sleeping next to a hole in the ground that they use for the toilet,” says Evyatar’s brother Ilay.
“They have just enough food and water to keep them alive.
“I know that they sing together and talk about the festivals they have gone to and the ones they want to visit.
“Music is a big part of their survival in the tunnels because they have no stimulus at all.”
Ilay says that wherever people stand on the Israel-Palestine conflict, they should be speaking up against hostage-taking.
“This is a humanitarian issue,” he insists.
“Anyone who says they are for human rights should be speaking about the hostages, too.
“It is sad to think that there are festivals going on which are filled with Palestine flags, but no one mentions what happened at Nova.
“They should talk about how people who were at a festival because they love music are being tortured in tunnels more than 600 days later.”
Hell of captivity
THEY danced in the desert until dawn at Israel’s Nova music festival.
But then terror struck on October 7, 2023, and these innocent revellers never made it home.
Most remain missing after being captured by Hamas.
Three were reportedly murdered.
Alon Ohel[/caption]
Guy Gilboa-Dalal and Evyatar David[/caption]
Avinatan Or[/caption]
Eitan Abraham Mor[/caption]
Guy Illouz (murdered)[/caption]
Bar Abraham Kupershtein[/caption]
Inbar Hayman (murdered)[/caption]
Maxim Herkin[/caption]
Uriel Baruch (murdered)[/caption]
Segev Kalfon[/caption]
Yosef-Chaim Ohana & Elkana Bohbot[/caption]
