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00:00Bring in now Adele Reimer, who is a survivor of the attack on the kibbutz Nirim. Adele, thank you
00:05very much for joining us here on France24. We appreciate your time and I'm wondering what
00:10thoughts you have on this very, well, I think it is a dark anniversary, isn't it? A dark anniversary
00:16one year on since the attack. Yeah, well thank you very much for having me. We also had our
00:25own ceremony on my kibbutz, I live on kibbutz Nirim, and we had our own very personal, very
00:34very communal service to commemorate the year since our lives have been turned upside down
00:42and literally nothing looks the same as it did a year and a day ago. Did you think,
00:50Adele, that there would still be this war going on right now?
00:56If you had told me that, can you see the number on my shirt? 367.
01:02367 days later we would still have our hostages, 101 of them in the bowels of Gaza,
01:12that we would still be refugees in our own home. I'm not in my home, I'm in an apartment in
01:18Beersheba, I can't go home. I would never have dreamed that it would last this long. Usually,
01:26you know, we're used to, Israel is used to short wars. Israel does well with short wars.
01:33Long wars, I don't think there's ever been a war this long and it's a major challenge.
01:41But in my community, we're optimistic. Five people from my community were murdered,
01:48five people were kidnapped. Three of the kidnapped people were women and they were released late
01:55November, and the two men tragically were executed in the territories of Gaza. So,
02:04we're just looking forward now and we're trying to preserve community,
02:11which as a kibbutz, that's the most important thing. A kibbutz is so much more than just the
02:15fields and the buildings. Kibbutz is community, so we're working really hard on building community.
02:23I've just come back from a 27-day speaking tour, trying to raise money for my community
02:28to rebuild our homes, because we have to build bigger and better and safer and stronger in order
02:36to convince the young families to come back, to bring new families in. So, we have our work cut
02:44out for us, but we're optimistic and we're strong and we will do it. Adele, it's very clear that you
02:51have great resolve and that you have great strength of character. And I can see in your
02:55face that you're a very human person as well. I'm wondering, with what you've seen and what you've
03:00been through, how you cope with processing that. But also, I'm wondering how you feel about the
03:05fact that so many Palestinians in the year that's elapsed, so many Palestinian deaths have resulted
03:13because of Israel's bombardment of the Gaza Strip. We're getting up to nearly 42,000 Palestinian
03:18dead. How do you feel about that? Every death of an innocent is tragic and horrible and shouldn't
03:29happen. But where's the world? How many lives on both sides of this conflict could have been saved
03:39if the world had stood up on October 8th and said, enough, let those people back,
03:48free those hostages, all of those hostages, 251 hostages, men, women, children, elderly, babies.
03:57How many lives could have been saved if the world had made the terrorists give these people back?
04:06What's going on on both sides is horrible. What's going on on the Gazan side is terrible.
04:15They could have had the Singapore of the Middle East when we pulled out in 2005,
04:22and they got all of this money from all of the different countries in the world. And what did
04:28they do with it? Instead of building high-rise buildings and institutions for learning and
04:34in hospitals, they built an entire city just for the purpose of terror underneath their grounds.
04:46So it's horrific. But when you use innocent people as hostages, innocent Gazans as human shields,
05:00are we supposed to just say, oh, okay, we'll just not do anything. You just
05:06slaughtered 1,200 of our people and kidnapped over 240 of our people. We'll just let that slide
05:14because we don't want to harm civilians. Adele, I'm sorry to cut across you, Adele,
05:21because what you're saying is incredibly interesting. But you've made a really
05:24important distinction, I think, between the terrorists, Hamas and that representative,
05:29and the ordinary people. And those ordinary people, I think, as you've already said,
05:34would want peace, would want this to end. At the beginning of the whole conflict,
05:39AntĂłnio Guterres of the United Nations, he said that this didn't happen in a bubble. He was
05:44implying that what Israel had done in terms of how the Gaza Strip is policed, in a sense,
05:50how it's all closed in, has led to what those Hamas terrorists did. Would you have
05:57anything to say about that? Would you ask somebody from Egypt that as well?
06:06I hear what you're saying. Please carry on.
06:09So, the reason why the Gaza—that piece of land that's called Gaza was closed off so—well,
06:22not even hermetically. The reason why it was closed off was because of terror. Thousands of
06:29Gazans had work permits and were coming into Israel and working and bringing money back into
06:36Gaza, albeit they had to pay a large chunk of that money to the Hamas for the privilege of being able
06:44to go out and work in Israel. But they were able to put food on their table and feed and close
06:50their children. It's—Egypt has as much responsibility of closing off Gaza as we do.
07:02They could have opened their sides of the border and people could have gone in and out freely.
07:09When I turned around on October 7th and saw the pictures of those terrorists coming in
07:16with flak jackets and helmets and advanced weapons,
07:22that's not a hermetically sealed area of land. They were getting plenty coming in.
07:30They were getting everything they needed. Unfortunately, everything they brought in
07:35was turned to terror and turned against us. Indeed, Adele, and can I say that no one,
07:41certainly not in this studio, would justify or seek to justify what Hamas did. It cannot be
07:45justified. It was an atrocity. It was horrific. And clearly, people should be held to account
07:51for that, leaders of Hamas first and foremost. I'm wondering how you see the future now, Adele,
07:58because clearly this war looks like it's set to continue. A solution doesn't seem to be anywhere
08:04on the horizon. The war, in many ways, appears to be spreading. Obviously, what we're seeing
08:09in Lebanon, we're seeing rockets being fired by the Houthi rebels from Yemen towards Israel.
08:14Clearly, this is being stoked from different sides. I'm wondering how you're feeling about
08:18the future. Do you feel that, say, for instance, some kind of two-state solution has to be the
08:23way forward? Are you against that? Where would you stand? Can you share that with us?
08:29I've always been in favor of a two-state solution, and I think the majority of Israelis
08:35were in favor of a two-state solution. But if you give a two-state solution now,
08:43you're just rewarding terror, and God forbid that should happen. Because what message is
08:49that sending to the terrorists? Go kidnap people, go murder people, and you'll get whatever you want?
08:56Unfortunately, the time of two-state solution passed. Now we have to do this war
09:04and get the job done. And then hopefully, in the future, with re-education, like the Allies did in
09:13Germany, in Japan, re-educating, re-teaching the people of those countries. Gazans, the Hamas have
09:25been doing an excellent job of educating their population to hate. That education has to be
09:33re-educated and re-changed, and they have to be taught. And that's not something that Israel can
09:39do. This has to be outside forces. Moderate Arab countries, and there are those. Other European
09:49countries, if they're willing to step in or step up, but there needs to be a re-education done.
09:56And then after that, there can be diplomatic solutions. There can be a two-state solution.
10:03And hopefully someday, I don't know if I will live to see it, but hopefully my grandchildren
10:08will live to see people living next to each other in peace and working together, cooperating.
10:17I think many of us would share that same opinion of yours, Adel, that was so well expressed.
10:22Can I ask you about Benjamin Netanyahu? He's spoken to the official commemoration
10:27ceremony that's been taking place. He's described the Israeli people as the chosen people who will
10:32continue to fight so long as hostages are held, so long as citizens aren't able to return to
10:38their homes. He may be referring perhaps to you with that phrase. I'm wondering whether you feel,
10:44as he says, that the 7th of October was a day of rebirth for Israel, or whether like some people,
10:49you feel that he's kind of, well, he's not handled this at all well. He's in fact been
10:54in some way to blame for the fact that this has been prolonged and continues to be
10:59very much a difficult situation, to say the least, for all concerned.
11:06I'd rather not get into politics.
11:08Understood.
11:08Certainly not on an international channel.
11:11I understand. I had to ask you though.
11:15I had to ask you.
11:19Good try, good try.
11:20Well, I had to ask you because it's kind of impossible to speak to someone in your position
11:24and not put the question, and I fully respect the fact that you don't want to talk about that,
11:28Adel. I'll leave that there. But can I come back to that rebuilding question? Because
11:35on a personal level, you've spoken about the desire to have peace, the desire to get things
11:39going and to sort of, you know, look to, I don't know, mend fences, create relationships with
11:46moderate Palestinians. Ordinary Palestinians also want peace. But I wonder how we get there.
11:51You've mentioned a call for international help in that sense. Do you think the will is there?
12:00On whose side?
12:02Well, on both. Let's say on both sides, Israeli and Palestinian.
12:06I can promise you that on the Israeli side, it is there.
12:09Okay.
12:10I can also tell you that I have in the past been in touch with Palestinians, with Arabs from Gaza,
12:19who do believe that there should be, could be a different way to raise children,
12:26a different way to live in this area. And I've given hundreds of talks and tours on my kibbutz
12:34before October 7th. And I always used to end up at the west side of the gate, at the west fence,
12:40overlooking Gaza, just a mile away, and telling them, I'm sure that the vast majority
12:48of the people on the other side of that fence just want the same thing that I do,
12:52food on their table, clothing for their children, education for their children.
12:57Unfortunately, after October 7th, I fear I got my numbers wrong. But I do believe that if we
13:06are able to make a change, getting moderates into Gaza from outside, that they will be able
13:16to take these people who were working towards collaboration and cooperation and teaching
13:23children other things, that they will be able to use them to raise them up. I always used to tell
13:29these people, you're my light, you're my candle, you're my bright light for the future, my bright
13:35hope for the future. Unfortunately, most of those people were hunted down by the Hamas. So first of
13:42all, we have to get rid of the Hamas, then we can talk. Adel Rehmer, thank you for joining us and
13:47sharing your thoughts with us and answering the questions that I put to you. That's Adel Rehmer
13:52who is a survivor of the attack on the Kibbutz Nirim, joining us from Beersheba, not able to
13:56return to her home of course, but hoping one day to do that and to resettle and to continue to
14:01build towards peace. Adel, thank you for joining us here on France 24. We appreciate your time.
14:05Thank you. Thank you very much. Adel Rehmer there.