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-The 134 Hostages’ Lives Do Matter
- The matter of human lives is something beyond the border, I believed. The Israeli hostages were brutally tortured and kidnapped on October 7th, 2023. The time has stopped since the loved ones are taken away to their families and relatives. Women have been reported to be raped during in captivity. The hostages are exposed to extremely inhumane conditions.
Do you ignore this and laugh about how the hostages are spending time in captivity now? This is evil in spirit itself. We, those wish and pray for the release for the hostages, will never lose hope over the live 134 hostages to be released. Hamas has declared that 20 hostages died on March 14th but this is a lie. All 134 hostages must come back unconditionally and come back to their families. -
When the video image of four female IDF soldiers tortured was released by Hamas this caught many people’s attention. I saw many comments, feeling terrible about the maltreatment of them. Kfir Bibas, the youngest hostage, was not even one year old when he was kidnapped to Gaza.
The heartbreaking video image of 32-year-old Kfir’s mother Shiri and her two children, Ariel and Kfir surrounded by Hamas fighters with Shiri’s face in fears was released. One day, I was speaking with Rev. Barry Dennison, who is the Vice President of International Christian Embassy Jerusalem over Kfir’s house, Kibuttz Nir Oz. Barry was saying that it was terribly destroyed. Kfir turned 1 year old on January 18th this year.
Shlomo Manour, who is the oldest hostage among 134, turned 86 years old and Doron Steinbrecher turned 31 years old on March 17th. How would you feel being a family of the hostages?
Now, for those who are concerned about the hostages in Gaza, the priority is to save the lives 134 people’s lives, who are the victims of October 7th. Do you want to see Hamas play games with people’s lives?
My friend Rev. Barry Danison introduced me to Calev Myers, an attorney who founded an organization to advocate for the hostages’ families. My family is not Christian anymore but I always have been connected with Christian and Jewish faith through my friends for decades from my childhood. My childhood friends who are in California were earnest Christians.
The organization “The Voice of Freedom Coalition,” Calev founded, is composed of thousands of Christian faith leaders and is active through organizations and networks of Christians outside Israel to call for the unconditional release of all the hostages held in Gaza. The founder of the organization is Calev Myers and he is tireless working with members to realize the release of the hostages.
I pray for the release of the hostages every day. The hostages’ families need mental support and others to live through this difficult time. To those who want to support the release of the hostages, it is important to support the advocacy group like No matter what, we will not lose hope and we always think of the unconditional release of all the hostages.
Many images of October 7th is imprinted in my mind. However, who experienced pains the most? The victims and their families. I’ve actually chatted with a French-Israeli male(I can’t tell his profession and his name) in a private chat. The first words came out of him was “Don’t look at the sight. It’s too terrible.”
I could not say that I have look at some of the horrible sights which were released to the public. He lost his cousin in Nova Music Festival. His cousin’s family is in Israel. I can’t write the private conversation I had.
I don’t believe it is because of the religion Islam. The religion Islam is the religion of peace and compassion. However, for decades, the religion Islam has been misused and interpreted in the terror groups or Radical Islamists such as ISIS, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and a lot of people lost their lives in the Middle East. To me, this is not just about October 7th. Regarding Israel, there has been endless terror attacks by Palestinian terrorists and Hamas. I will discuss on other posts.
The Voice of Coalition’s effort to ask for the world leaders to advocate for the hostages continues. The story of hostages is not irrelevant to Japan. North Korea kidnapped dozens of hostages from Japan and from European countries, using spies. The number of kidnapped Japanese by North Korean spies are unknown. It is very difficult for the Japanese government to determine whether the missing cases of Japanese are relevant to the North Korean kidnapping cases. Only 17 cases are officially recognized by the Japanese government. Among the kidnapped Japanese, only five Japanese kidnapped by North Korean authority came back to Japan in 2004, decades after they were kidnapped.
Among the kidnapped Japanese, there is a woman almost every Japanese knows. Her name is Megumi Yokota. She went missing when she was only 13 years old, the first year of junior high school, and her whereabouts are still uncertain to this day. If she were alive, she would be 59 years old now. Megumi Yokota is now the age of becoming a grandmother.
Her mother, Sakie Yokota, has a desperate plea. Wishing the return of beloved daughter, Megumi, for decades, she is now 88 years old. Her husband, Shigeru Yokota, passed away in 2020.
I participated in church services for a while to understand Christianity and also find trace of my grandmother. It was several years ago that I had a booklet that church organization distributes to those who come to church regularly. I opened it. There was an article of Ms. Sakie Yokota. She was not like a person who was in the newspaper but more personal and straightforward, which was written for the churchgoers, to how she feels about her missing daughter. Her husband was getting old and his health was not very well. However, he wished to see his daughter until his last moment. And, Ms. Sakie Yokota is waiting for her daughter to this day.
The families of 134 hostages want their family members kidnapped in Gaza home now.
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