Cousin of Israeli hostage Carmel Gat killed by Hamas says her death is ‘tragic nightmare’

The cousin of an Israeli hostage killed by Hamas said her death was a ‘tragic nightmare’.Source: Bel Trew / The Independent

Transcript

00:00For us, this is the most tragic nightmare that we could have dreamed of.

00:06We had information that Carmel is alive and we even had signs of life from just

00:13a few weeks before she was murdered.

00:17We knew that she was alive and we were trying everything, really everything,

00:23to tell our government and to tell the government of the world that

00:27a ceasefire is the most urgent thing. That's what I was doing and Carmel's brother Alon was doing

00:33in Congress just in July, a month before Carmel was murdered.

00:40We were trying to urge the sides to seal the deal and unfortunately we now know,

00:46it has become public, that Carmel was a part of the deal that was actually authorized by Hamas.

00:53After a long time of negotiations, her name was there, the name of Hersh Goldberg Poland was there,

00:59the name of Adeni Rushalmi was also there and the Israeli government's decision

01:07to delay, to put more terms, to stick to the Philadelphia line between Gaza and Egypt,

01:16the decision that was made just a week ago,

01:19that made sure that the hostages stayed in captivity and unfortunately that was the end for Carmel,

01:30for Hersh, for Aden, for Al-Mogh, for Alex and for Ori. All six of them were alive,

01:39all six of them were held together and all six of them were killed in captivity

01:47and we could have saved all of them and for us as the family of Carmel and as a part of the

01:54hostage families forum, the most important thing now, the focus that we're trying to put now

02:00is on the hostages that are still in captivity, there are still 101 hostages, most of them are alive,

02:06just like Carmel was alive, just like Hersh was alive, we know that they're alive,

02:12it's not important how we know but we do, we know and we want the Israeli government,

02:21all governments of the world and of course Hamas, who's to blame for the fact that they're there,

02:26to know that the most important thing for us as Israelis is to get the hostages home.