Hamas Took Their Brother Hostage. They Are Asking US to Help.

Yonatan Lulu-Shamriz’s daughter was celebrating her second birthday on Oct. 7 in Israel. Inside the protected room of their house 1 mile from the border of Gaza, Lulu-Shamriz’s little woman was delighted that she was allowed to eat her birthday cake along with her fingers as her mother and father had not had time to seize forks as they fled into the protected room. The little one was unaware of the Hamas terrorists exterior, and her mother and father did every part they might to guarantee it stayed that means.  

“I told her that we were going to play a game,” Lulu-Shamriz stated, “the whisper game, that if we whisper, we get the balloons after.”  

For the 22 hours he, his 7-month pregnant spouse, his daughter, and their two canines had been within the protected room, they tried to stay as silent as attainable, and if his daughter began to sing or discuss loudly, he reminded her of the sport and the prize of balloons if she remained quiet.  

After being within the protected room for a couple of hours, Lulu-Shamriz, who’s 33 and the oldest amongst three boys, obtained a textual content from his 26-year-old brother Alon Lulu-Shamriz telling the household he heard Hamas terrorists in his home.  

“I wrote him that I love him, and he’s strong, and this is the last time we spoke,” Lulu-Shamriz instructed The Daily Signal throughout a current interview.  

Lulu-Shamriz’s youngest brother was taken hostage by Hamas through the assault in October. At first, the household thought he was among the many 1,200 Israelis killed within the terrorist assault, however later, the Israel Defense Forces confirmed that he was taken hostage.   

Lulu-Shamriz and his brother Ido Lulu-Shamriz, 32, lately traveled from Israel to Washington, D.C., to share their story and advocate for his or her little brother and the discharge of about 240 hostages being held in Gaza.  

The oldest Lulu-Shamriz stated he and his household haven’t discovered any peace since his little brother was kidnapped, however as a substitute stated he feels “blame all the time.”  

“You wear these clothes, you eat food, you go to bed, you brush your teeth in the morning, and you always ask yourself if Alon get the same conditions,” the oldest brother stated. “When you put your blanket at night, you ask yourself, ‘Is Alon cold now?’” 

Ido Lulu-Shamriz, the center brother, had a special expertise on Oct. 7. The center brother is a part of the civilian emergency squad in his kibbutz close to the Gaza border in Israel. Every kibbutz close to the Gaza Strip has a civilian squad that may reply to threats till the Israel Defense Forces arrives, Ido Lulu-Shamriz defined.  

Around 6:30 a.m. on Oct. 7, Ido Lulu-Shamriz obtained a message from a squad member that somebody had parachuted into his kibbutz with a gun. He then began to hear missiles go off and alarms sound and realized that “this is not just the missile attack.”

“This is something unique, something that never happened to us,” he stated.

Ido Lulu-Shamriz and the members of his civilian emergency squad had been instructed by way of a gaggle WhatsApp message to go to the shelter within the kibbutz the place their weapons are saved. He reached the shelter and received his gun and he and the opposite squad members started to struggle “dozens of terrorists around the shelter,” he recalled.

“Seven of my friends were killed,” Ido Lulu-Shamriz added. “Seven of them fought shoulder to shoulder with me, and the other seven guys survived.”  

“At the beginning, we thought about attack,” he stated, however “then you realize you need to defend because there are so many, they were everywhere. And then you realize it’s self-defense, you know, everyone needs to rescue himself before you’re going to be dead like your friends.”  

Ido Lulu-Shamriz and his good buddy retreated again to his home, however earlier than they made it to security, Ido Lulu-Shamriz noticed that his neighbor’s door was open. His neighbors, a husband and spouse, had two 10-month-old twins.  

“When I saw the door open, I realized that they are not with us anymore,” he stated, bluntly.

Ido Lulu-Shamriz entered the protected room in his house along with his buddy and initially believed that Hamas terrorists had killed the mother and father and their twin infants. Later, nevertheless, via the partitions of the protected room, they heard the infants crying. “They didn’t stop for 12 hours,” the center brother stated.  

He despatched a message to Israel Defense Forces troopers alerting them to the dual infants, however “they didn’t reach them for 12 hours, 12 hours that I’m hearing those twins crying nonstop while their parents are dead between their beds.”

Reflecting on the occasions of Oct. 7, Ido Lulu-Shamriz added, “Nothing can prepare you for those moments, you know, for such a battle, such a sight to fight with your best friends that are now alive and a couple of minutes later, they are dead. It’s terrible. You can’t prepare for those moments in your life.”  

When requested what message they’ve for President Joe Biden and America’s leaders, Yonatan Lulu-Shamriz, the eldest brother, stated America wants to put “pressure on Qatar” as a result of the nation has a “direct channel to Hamas” and Qatar may play a job in negotiating the discharge of the hostages.  

Victoria Coates, vp of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation, instructed The Daily Signal that “Qatar does have leverage with Hamas.” But Coates famous that the hostage negotiations are complicated and that there isn’t a easy reply to shifting negotiations ahead. (The Daily Signal is the information outlet of Heritage.) 

Yonatan Lulu-Shamriz stated he hopes U.S. residents perceive that what “happened in Israel on the seventh of October, it’s not aimed only for Jews, for Israelis, and Zionists.”

“They killed everyone,” he stated, referring to Hamas. “They kill Thai people, they kill Americans, they killed Russian, and Europe is next. America is next.”  

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