Israeli Mother on Hamas Terrorists Kidnaping Her Children: ‘It’s Against the Laws of War’

An Israeli mother broke down Monday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” as she told the story of Hamas terrorists taking her children hostage while she was on the phone with them.

Partial transcript as follows:

ANDREA MITCHELL: She has asked us not to use her name. I cannot imagine your anguish. Have you heard anything more about your sons’ conditions or any ransom demand or anything else on their condition?

ISRAELI MOTHER: No. I heard nothing from Saturday morning when we’ve last heard, had contact with them.

MITCHELL: Where were they with it? Were they at home?

ISRAELI MOTHER: They were home at my place. It was their weekend with my father. We’re divorced. He was at his place. We’re both members of the same settlement on the Gaza border, which is a few hundreds meters away. It’s not. It’s not far. That’s why they usually sleep at my place. This is where they feel comfortable. They’re 12 and 16 so, you know, on a on a rational, normal world. It’s a good solution. They were in the beds at 630.

MITCHELL: I, we now have the the mother back on back on with us. We were going to ask you about what you were saying to your boys. You were trying to keep them calm.

ISRAELI MOTHER: Yeah, I was on the phone to them and then trying to, trying to calm them down, saying, you know, the military is going to get there and they’re safe and they’re in their home. This is what we always tell them. And then at approximately half-past eight, they started hearing voices of the door breaking. They were with me on the phone and I asked them to be quiet, to stay quiet. They were in the safe room, which is a bedroom of the eldest, who’s 16, as I said. And about 10 minutes later, I could hear people speaking in Arabic outside their door and they broke in. And the last thing I heard was the youngest who’s 12 saying to them, “I’m too young, don’t take me!”.

And that was it. That was the last time I heard from them.

MITCHELL: I am so sorry. We are all thinking about you. Have you heard anything from the government?

ISRAELI MOTHER: Oh, no, unfortunately not yet. Well, the army is now getting in touch with families. I know. And I’m, you know, I’m keeping my hopes up that they’re alive and well. I know that their father and his spouse were taken also, because we’ve seen one of the, one of the videos that Hamas put on. So we know that they’re alive. And I’m hoping that they’re with them. And as they took hundreds of children, babies, women and elderly people, some of them from the place I live in, I’m hopeful that they’re all together and that they have other people that they know around them to keep them safe and to give them a hug.

MITCHELL: So that they’re all together.

MOTHER: And I just want them back home.

MITCHELL: I’m sure you want them to be with people they know so that they’re not alone there but what are your feelings about the attacks against Gaza right now?

ISRAELI MOTHER: You’re looking for a symmetrical situation and I must say, it isn’t. If you were dealing with a war who is between two countries, countries don’t take children hostages. I’m sorry. It’s against the laws of war. It’s against humanity. It’s against anything that we all believe in. Every time we have missiles shot at us, I used to say to my children that they should be sympathetic towards the children of Gaza because they suffer a lot more than they do. I’m not sure I still believe in it now. The only worry I have now from the bombings in Gaza is the fact that my children are there. I can’t be sympathetic anymore, to animal human beings, well, they’re not really human beings, who came into my house, broke everything, stole everything, took my children from their bedrooms and took them to the Gaza strip. Israel has never done that and will never do that. So there is no symmetry. I’m sorry.

MITCHELL: Do you want the government–.

ISRAELI MOTHER: I’m sorry to be so emotional.

MITCHELL: Do you want the government to put the top priority on getting the hostages out before they retaliate–

ISRAELI MOTHER: I want my government to put it on the first priority. And I want the world to put it on first priority. I think any mother in the world should try and imagine her children under that situation and then think again. That’s all I want. I want the world to ask them to release children, to release elderlies, to release the civilians they took. There is no reason to hold them there. They are not soldiers. They are not part of the war. And they have nothing to do with it. We gave them work permits. We really believed that this was the way to move their economy, to reunite, to to reconnect these two so-called countries. This is not the way a country behaves. This is a way that a terror organization behaves. I’m sorry. So, again, there’s no symmetry.

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