FAMILY PAIN
A DISTRAUGHT Brit revealed his mum was planning to visit him in the UK to celebrate her 75th birthday when she was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists in Israel.
Noam Sagi, 53, called for the release of 130 hostages in Gaza as he opened up on the capture of his mother.
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It has been five days since frail Ada Sagi and 80 people were targeted by heartless armed militants at Nir Oz Kibbutz.
Ada's home was located less than a kilometre from the Gaza Strip.
Noam, from Cricklewood, said: “The last time I heard from my mum was at 9.30am on Saturday when she was heading to her safe room. She was alone after losing my dad last year.
“Nothing prepares you for that, up until then I was working with clients and helping them deal with their own emotions.
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“My mum is the daughter of Polish exiles. My parents all their lives they fought for a better future for us.
“On Saturday morning she was in the front line of atrocities and a horrible, horrible attack.
“Can someone remind me why she is a hostage? For being Jewish and living in Israel.
“I don't have the words to look into my son’s eyes and tell him why my mum was taken.”
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Noam is a New London Synagogue member and also grew up on the Kibbutz Nir Oz from where his mum was snatched by the ruthless Hamas terrorists.
"I saw a video online from a Palestinian reporter reporting from the front lawn of her house," he said.
"I saw people start to come out from her house and my heart was sinking at that point".
Following the invasion of the kibbutz and the kidnap of his mother, Noam was forced to piece together theories of what may have happened through footage posted online by the terrorists.
“This is from footage that they put online so I can see it live in front of my eyes and it’s all people I know and people I grew up with, and people that are friends and family,” he said.
He is also concerned that his mother, who has asthma and other allergies, will not have her EpiPen with her which may be a lifeline if she was to fall ill.
The desperate son has been trying to reach her for days and said: “The list of dead and kidnapped from Nir Oz is horrific."
Calling for the world to open its eyes to the evil of Hamas, Noam, a London-based psychotherapist, said: “I’m here because of pure evil.
“These people woke up to a massacre. To a second holocaust. They have been gassed, burnt, butchered, slaughtered, killed, and kidnapped.
“Hamas burnt young kids and elderly people, burnt place to ground, shot dogs, there is nothing left.
“There is no politics here [in my appeal] no context no religion no race. It is simply humanity.”
Noam believes that his mother is being held captive along with around 20 of her neighbours and friends from the kibbutz - mostly aged between 74 to around 85, but also young children.
Meanwhile, British artist Sharon Lifschitz said her mum, 85, was using an oxygen tank when she was kidnapped alongside her father, 83.
Her parents - who were not named for security reasons - were also taken by militants at Nir Oz Kibbutz Saturday’s attack.
Fighting back tears, Sharon, 52, said her mum and dad are in desperate need of medication.
She said: “I am here because there is work to do. There are hostages in Gaza, my mum was disconnected from her oxygen and loaded onto a motorbike.
“My father spent his life fighting for peace. We are all his children when we ask for peace.
“I feel hollow for the past few days, but I feel like we are strong.
“My father would say ‘why bother with me, I am 83, bother with my neighbours three children, bother with the babies.”
She called for the hostages to be brought home, adding: “Together we are facing this thing, an act of such barbarity that it is coaxing us into hate and rage and wanting to destroy.
“These are the children that we all know, and I am here to be a voice on their behalf.”
Thousands of rockets were sent into Israel and entire families were butchered in their homes, while at a music festival, 260 were slaughtered.
Israelian Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday said Hamas had beheaded soldiers, raped women, shot children in the head, and burned people alive during their horror attacks on Israel.
He raged: "Every member of Hamas is a dead man".
The war, which was ignited by the bloody and wide-ranging Hamas attack on Israel on Saturday, has already claimed at least 2,400 lives on both sides.
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Noam called on the BBC to label brutal Hamas a terror group, adding: “Call it for what it is.”
He thanked the British people and the UK Government for their support of Israelis.
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