Silence for hostages held by Hamas shattered by chants and abuse

The Telegraph made their report of this afternoon’s rally for the hostages after I posted the information from Sussex Friends of Israel. It has details not available to me at that time. 

Thousands of Jewish people stood together in silence in Trafalgar Square on Sunday evening to remember and think of the hostages brutally seized by Hamas. Yet even that quiet minute was punctured by hate.

A list of 200 Israelis snatched by the terror group in the Oct 7 attacks was read from a stage following poignant speeches by some of their relatives, while many in the audience sobbed, before the silence began.

But 30 seconds in, it was shattered by loud chants from passers-by before police at the perimeter fence arrested a man and bundled him into a patrol van after what was understood to have been an attempt to storm the gated event.

There was a heavy presence of security guards from the Community Security Trust. Police patrolled the perimeter of Trafalgar Square, while others keeping watch on rooftops amid heightened tensions.

The Metropolitan Police said a suspect “has been arrested for a public order offence after shouting abuse towards those taking part in the vigil. The suspect is now in custody”. It added in a statement: “There was also another arrest of a man who officers heard shouting anti-Semitic abuse from a passing car.”

Ofri Bibas Levy, 37, told the crowd how her brother had sent a frantic message saying “I love you” as terrorists approached his family home.  She broke down into tears as she said: “I never wrote ‘I love you’ back, because I never thought I wouldn’t see him again. Ten minutes later he said they were coming inside their house, and ever since I know nothing about them.”

Ayelet Svatitzky, 46, a mother of three who lives in Kibbutz Yagur in Israel, recalled her desperate attempts to save her 79-year-old mother and two brothers in an 8am phone call as Hamas closed in, with two of them now held hostage and the other dead. . . Then I received photos from my mum’s WhatsApp – the terrorists took pictures of her sitting in her living room, still in her nightwear, and my brother, with ‘Hamas’ written underneath. They uploaded a third picture to my mum’s Facebook story with guns in the background.”