00:00Right. Efrat Machikawa joins me now from southern Israel.
00:04Five of her family members were at one point being held by Hamas.
00:08Hello and welcome, Efrat.
00:10How are your family members doing?
00:15It's difficult.
00:18No one in Israel will be on stage of recovery
00:21unless the whole 50 hostages will be home
00:27and we will see the end of the catastrophe around us
00:31and recovery will be starting.
00:36No one is complete.
00:38We are all in terrible sorrow of seeing what happened.
00:42I remind you that on October 7th,
00:45250 hostages were taken from their beds
00:49and now there are still 50 and all the selection
00:53and the ongoing war and the terrible situation
00:57in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis everywhere
01:01and Hamas still holding and still terrorizing
01:05not only Israel but also the Palestinians.
01:09It's hard.
01:10But we're not giving hope.
01:12We're not giving up to hope.
01:14We are looking forward, a ceasefire, an end to this terrible war
01:20and the return of all 50 hostages at once,
01:25maybe not on the same day, but at once, no selection,
01:32and bringing hope to our Mediterranean region.
01:36Right, right.
01:37I mean, as you say, 50 hostages still remain with Hamas
01:42and it must be frustrating, I should say, right?
01:46Israelis, in our report, are not happy with the efforts
01:49of the Netanyahu government to free them.
01:51What are your thoughts on how it's been going so far?
01:54I belong to the 85% of the Israelis who say we are not our government.
02:03We want this war to end and we know that the release
02:10of the hostages will do that.
02:12It has to stop.
02:14There has been too much suffering.
02:18There is no end to the cycle of violence.
02:21I think that it is upon the international community
02:25and we thank President Trump for leading it,
02:30to call for end of the war and the return of all hostages home
02:35so people will be able to return to respectful life,
02:40to respectful conditions, to some kind of a resilience
02:45that will grow in order for us to go back to normal life.
02:50But you know that as long as Hamas is terrorizing
02:54the Middle East, Gaza, and Israel, we are in danger.
03:00This Islamic extremist is actually hurting their own people,
03:08including ours, no matter whether we are Jews or Muslim
03:14or Druze or Kurdish, it doesn't matter.
03:17So we have to be very, very careful in describing the situation.
03:23The terror has to end and the suffering both of the Palestinians
03:28themselves and ours must end.
03:32It is a catastrophe.
03:35It's heartbreaking to see what's happening.
03:39You are a cultural diplomacy specialist.
03:41You just returned from a trip to Germany with other hostage family members.
03:47Yes.
03:48So it really begs the question, what do you make of Germany's role
03:52in helping with the return of hostages and end the war in Gaza?
03:56I think that we want to thank Germany for everything they did until now,
04:04but we are on a critical point.
04:07And this is why we went.
04:09We want all Germans to know there are still seven German citizens
04:15held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
04:19So we asked the German government to talk more, to explain,
04:25to show the catastrophe and to take responsibility in making sure
04:29that the German hostages are coming back out of Gaza,
04:34but not all of them because we are not talking about selection.
04:38We think Germany is taking responsibility and doing.
04:42They could do more.
04:43We would like more leaders to announce that publicly.
04:48And we want Germany to push the countries they know they can push.
04:53We need an international coalition to end this humanitarian catastrophe.
05:00And we're there with Germany, with the rest of the world,
05:05and with the United States calling, stop the war, bring the hostages back,
05:10bring hope to the Middle East, Palestinians and Israelis as well.
05:17Right.
05:18Efrat Machikawa in Israel.
05:21Thank you very much.
05:23Thank you very much.
Comments