2024-01-15 13:20:20
The ever-present demand for the release of the hostages 100 days after their kidnapping
Vienna (OTS/SK) – Petra Bayr, foreign policy spokeswoman for the SPÖ, was in Israel from January 11th to 14th to get an idea of the political situation there. “100 days after the Hamas attack, the kidnapping of Israeli hostages and the start of the war, Israel is a traumatized country. But also a country in which Jewish and Arab Israelis have moved closer together than ever before, as I was able to see for myself in many conversations,” said the member of the National Council. The demand for the immediate release of the still 136 hostages is omnipresent. “The liberation of the hostages must be the primary goal of all political efforts,” affirms Bayr. ****
A high priority during Bayr’s visit was the question of the “day after”, i.e. how things can continue after the war, which will hopefully be over soon. Both Gil Murciano from the think tank Mitvim as well as representatives Jonathan Cummings and Tomer Retznik from the Workers’ Party and Meretz, both sister parties of the SPÖ, assume that “managing” the conflict is not possible and that a long-term perspective for the people in the region is only one can bring a two-state solution. “This will only work with a new government, the current one has clearly failed in its task of protecting the people of Israel. Security, life prospects and peace are by far not just a military task, but above all a political task. Many interlocutors are assuming that new elections will be held this year and see the only chance of getting out of this deep crisis in the region as a completely new political beginning and a renewed and increased commitment to a two-state solution with the premise that Hamas will not be a partner in this. From the SPÖ’s point of view, a politically tenable solution can only be achieved with the inclusion of the democratically legitimate representation of the Palestinians and must take place on the basis of and in continuation of the Oslo principles within the framework of a ceasefire,” said Bayr.
A meeting with family members organized by the Forum of Families – both of those released, of those killed and of hostages with uncertain status – was dedicated to the subsequent 24-hour demonstration with 120,000 participants, which took place on Sunday at 11:30 a.m. in a hundred-minute nationwide remembrance resulted. Not only the uncertainty of what will happen to their family members, but also the question of the meaning of their restless activities gets on their nerves. Bayr: “Everyone has great hope in the prospect of the international Red Cross being able to finally provide medical care to the hostages. How many of the hostages are still alive, who were mutilated and raped, who are in such bad condition that they will not be returned because they could tell the public how cruelly they were treated, is currently difficult to answer .”
“Sexual violence against women by Hamas during October 7th as well as against the held hostages was the dominant topic of many discussions, especially with the chairwoman of the Israeli umbrella organization for victims of sexual violence, Orit Solizeanu, and the member of the Knesset Merav Ben-Ari from the Yesh Atid party, with whom Bayr was able to discuss political activities in this regard during the upcoming plenary week of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. “The shame of rape of women on an individual level has become a shame of the entire country, which feels that it has been raped and is calling for clarification, recognition of the injuries and legal prosecution,” said the MP. (End) sd/up
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