A ceremony in memory of the victims of Hamas attacks in Israel took place Monday morning on Castle Hill in Nice.
Several hundred people commemorated October 7 on Monday in Nice (Alpes-Maritimes), with the unveiling of a monument by the artist Joann Sfar and speeches from the authorities with a resolutely combative tone. “We are gathered here to say what is too often kept silent, for fear of giving in, for fear of not being sufficiently consensual: the Israeli nation has the right to live in peace, protected by a state of its own. »insisted the prefect, Hugues Moutouh.
He also denounced “the secret and unhealthy little game played by a handful of notorious anti-Semites” (political, associative or militant) who according to him seek to legitimize the Shoah by replacing it “another so-called genocide, that of the Palestinian people, a people who are suffering and enduring a terrible war”. He mentioned “a platform anti-Semitism which undoubtedly seeks to escape the law, but a vulgar and brutal anti-Semitism which must be condemned and fought”.
Candles
The mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi (Horizons), insisted on the existence of“French anti-Semitism”, “this dull, deep impulse to want to attack Jews because they are Jews”pointing “political Islamism” et “the radical left”. For him, it is a clash between two worldviews: “That of freedom, tolerance, dignity and that of obscurantist, fanatical, intolerant and let’s say it totalitarian of the mullahs and ayatollahs. Israel is leading this fight for us, the Western democracies. For the courageous Iranian women (…), for the Lebanese and Syrian democrats (…), for the Palestinians who have the right to aspire to a future other than hatred and martyrdom”.
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At the end of the ceremony, the participants placed candles in front of the work of Joann Sfar, representing people of all ages as Chinese shadows, carved with two letters in Hebrew meaning “we will live”.
The unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7 in Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures, including hostages who died or were killed in captivity in the strip. from Gaza. Of the 251 people kidnapped then, 97 are still hostages in Gaza, including 33 considered dead. More than 41,870 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli military campaign of retaliation on the Gaza Strip, the majority civilians, according to data from the Hamas government’s Health Ministry for Gaza, deemed reliable by the UN.
