Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: GIL COHEN-MAGEN / AFP 18:40 p.m., October 12, 2023

Families of French hostages held by Hamas in Gaza on Thursday publicly called on President Emmanuel Macron to "intervene" for their release, at a news conference in Tel Aviv. Among the participants was Batsheva Yahalomi, mother of a 12-year-old boy, Eitan, who has been missing since Saturday.

Families of French hostages held by Hamas in Gaza on Thursday publicly called on President Emmanuel Macron to "intervene" for their release, at a news conference in Tel Aviv. "I ask for the intervention of France and everyone, to have information about my children, but also all those who have disappeared," said in Hebrew Batsheva Yahalomi, mother of a 12-year-old boy, Eitan, missing since Saturday in southern Israel after the unprecedented attack launched by men of the Palestinian Islamist movement in power in Gaza.

"I think that France has a very humanitarian character, very generous, and I am convinced that President Macron, for whom many of us voted, will do something (...), that he will intervene," said Batsheva Yahalomi's mother in French, introducing herself as Jocelyne, without giving her last name.

"This French baby, he must see his mother"

"What I'm asking is that we first receive photos of all the people who have been kidnapped, we ask that Céline, Ellie's mother, come back," said Samuel Ben-David, brother of Céline Ben David Nagar, who disappeared like her daughter on Saturday morning.

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"As you know, we grew up in France, we immigrated (to Israel) in 2006, we are French, in our hearts, we speak French, Ellie, she knows all the songs in French, we have to bring back this French mother, this French baby, he has to see his mother," he added. "I want to speak directly to Emmanuel Macron, I want (...) let my sister come back now," said Meitav Journo, sister of Karin Journo, another missing young woman.

Labeled a terrorist group by the European Union and the United States, Hamas launched hundreds of armed men by air, land and sea into southern Israel on Saturday morning, evading the imposing security fence erected around the Gaza Strip. The onslaught, which was extremely violent, caught Israel completely off guard on the last day of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot and in the middle of Shabbat. Dozens of Israelis and foreigners, soldiers, civilians, children and women, have been captured and taken as hostages in the Gaza Strip since the offensive, which was accompanied by large-scale massacres of civilians.