Staring bravely to a crowd of reporters and cameras, Sagi called on the media as well as the British government to do everything in their power to help bring the hostages home.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m a British citizen, I\u2019m one of your own,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cOn Saturday morning the [place] where I was born [and] grew up woke up to [a] massacre, the second Holocaust. They’ve been gassed, burned, butchered, slaughtered, killed and kidnapped.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI call on all of you the media people here in this room to connect to take responsibility and present right from the wrong. Call the Hamas for what they are: a terror group. They need to take care of the civilians and instead they taking others. They’re using you to manipulate opinions and in the psychological warfare, you are being used.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sagi revealed the awful way his life had been upended by events in Israel. Instead of speaking at a press conference appealing for the return of babies and elderly people, the 43-year-old should have been collecting his mother from Heathrow ahead for birthday celebrations in London.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing prepares you for that. Up until Friday. I’m working with my clients and helping them with their own emotions. Then it comes down to the basic existential reason why we\u2019re here [and asking] Is my mum alive?\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
The press conference began with shocking revelations by Defend Israeli Democracy UK about some of those kidnapped, such as a six-month-old baby who was seized.<\/p>\n
Spokesperson Sharon Shochat described how a \u201cmodern-day death squad\u201d had entered Israeli civilian communities in the south of the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey went door to door, snatched babies from their mothers and children from their beds, handcuffed them and then brutally, cold-bloodedly slaughtered their entire families in their homes,\u201d she told reporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cYoung people at a music festival were surrounded and attacked, terrorised and assaulted. Young people who are in a music festival for peace. Girls were raped over their friends’ bodies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sagi sat beside Sharon Lifschitz, 52, an artist and academic whose peace activist parents in their 80s have also been taken hostage. Growing emotional she repeatedly told reporters there had been no updates on the wellbeing of her family members.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/cdn.images.express.co.uk\/img\/dynamic\/78\/590x\/secondary\/5008792.jpg?r=1697127672694\")
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Don’t miss… <\/strong> We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info<\/p>\n \u201cI keep telling my son that they are very \u2018valuable assets\u2019 and therefore people are looking after them. I have no clue [if they are], but I have to somehow find a way through this reality.\u201d<\/p>\n Lifschitz said her parents were incredibly strong in \u201cheart\u201d and \u201cwill\u201d but were in precarious physical condition. \u201cWhen my mum was taken out she was disconnected from her oxygen,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n Sagi and Lifschitz\u2019s parents both lived in the Kibbutz Nir Oz, a tight-knit collectivist community established in the 1950s. Defend Israeli Democracy UK estimated around 80% of those who lived there died in the attack and the rest are missing.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is evidence that this was premeditated,\u201d Lifschitz said. \u201cThese people knew the location of every house on every kibbutz, they had planned which way they were going to go through the houses [and] brought equipment to break in. They planned it all, this has been planned for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n Lifschitz explained her father had at times been marginalised for his moderate views on the Israel-Palestine conflict. It was a family joke that, despite often speaking to journalists, he rarely made the final cut because his opinions were not extreme enough.<\/p>\n A caring person, he regularly drove sick Palestinians to doctor appointments on the other side of Jerusalem. Lifschitz wonders if it could be these small gestures could make a difference.<\/p>\n \u201cI grew up on all these Holocaust stories about how my uncle’s life was saved because he gave a coat to a Polish man-where small acts of kindness made the difference when everything became impossible. Do I want that to be the story here? yes\u201d<\/p>\n Asked if her father\u2019s mission for peace became all the more distant in the wake of the weekend\u2019s events Lifschitz replied now was not the time for such analysis.<\/p>\n \u201cThink about the hostages, think about how long we have for them because there’s something that we can do here. There’s so much I cannot do. I cannot return to Israel or tell my father to take the ambulance that came to see him on Friday night because then he would safe and I cannot do anything for the dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
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