At 12 and 16 years old, they have just spent a month and a half in captivity. Three Franco-Israeli minors held hostage by Hamas were finally reunited with their families on Monday, November 27. Included in the fourth group of hostages released during the truce concluded between the Palestinian terrorist organization and the Israeli army, the three teenagers are the first French nationals to have been released out of the eight kidnapped on October 7.
Erez, Sahar and the Kalderon family
Little Erez Kalderon and his big sister Sahar, two teenagers aged 12 and 16 respectively, were kidnapped along with their father, Ofer, 53, in Nir Oz. Erez appeared in a video filmed in Gaza and posted on social media. The two children are French through their mother, Hadas, who made the rounds in the media to ask for their release. Hadas’ mother, Carmela Dan, 80, and niece Noya, 13, were killed in the attack. The French actress and director Agnès Jaoui also confided in The Parisian that she was related to the Kalderon family.
Since the kidnapping of his children and their father, Hadas Kalderon ardently campaigned for their return. “I tell everyone that the war can wait, that we have to talk to Qatar, that we have to talk to Hamas. That we have to free the children,” she explained to Release end of October.
The joy is immense for her, even if the father of her children, Ofer, seems for the moment still captive of Hamas, without conclusive proof of life. “The last message I got from my son was: ‘Mom, be careful, be quiet, I love you!'” she told Release. On the morning of the attack, she was not in the same house as her children and her ex-husband. First taking refuge in an air raid shelter during the Hamas raid, the family fled before being captured, with Hadas remaining mortified when her ex-husband stopped texting her news.
Eitan, taken alone by Hamas
Third French child detained by Hamas, the Franco-Israeli teenager Eitan, 12 years old, was kidnapped, just like his father, Ohad Yahalomi, 49 years old (not released), from their house in Nir Oz, a few kilometers from the border with the Gaza Strip. According to his mother, Batsheva, the whole family tried to take refuge, still in their pajamas, in the “mama” of the house, the secure room. The door did not close, so the father stood in front with a pistol, before being injured in an exchange of fire.
The father left lying on the ground, Batsheva and her three children were first kidnapped by the attackers, taken away on two motorcycles. Eitan’s mother and two sisters then managed to escape and tried to reach the kibbutz to rescue Ohad, who disappeared upon their arrival. Eitan remained on the first motorcycle that traveled towards Gaza. “Eitan is a lover of nature and animals, he is passionate about football and hiking,” wrote his grandmother Esther in a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron, published in The JDD.
Immense relief and incomplete joy
“We too, France, find three of our children, Eitan, Erez and Sahar, who were cowardly taken hostage and who are finally free,” rejoiced the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Catherine Colonna, confiding her “ immense relief.” The three teenagers “are doing well”, she later clarified on RTL, still emphasizing the psychological shock. “There is classic medical monitoring, as always in these cases, but they do not seem to have been tested beyond this terrible fifty-day detention, and what it may have represented in terms of psychological shock, difficulties in daily life .”
Emmanuel Macron said he was “extremely happy”. The joy is immense, but “incomplete”, comment the lawyers of the Kalderon family, because the father of Erez and Sahar remains in the hands of Hamas and hostage in Gaza. The same goes for Eitan’s father.
Catherine Colonna recalled that “France’s No. 1 priority [était] to free all our compatriots” still in the hands of the Palestinian movement, adding: “[La France] will not relax its efforts.” But the negotiations between Qatar, which acts as an intermediary, Hamas and Israel are “difficult”, according to her. “Until the last moment, we do not know, she explained . The hostages who are expected to be released are brought together by the same Hamas. We have to bring them together, bring them back to the point of contact which is the ICRC. […] But, sometimes, there are discussions about names, the number of people, the quality of the person, if a person could not be found or gathered in time,” she added, specifying that some hostages were held by Hamas, others by Islamic Jihad, and still others by “individuals”.