Kidnapped Teen’s Mother Tells U.N. Council of ‘Nightmare’
Image by getty images
The mother of kidnapped Israeli teen Naftali Frenkel told the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva that every boy and girl deserves to come home to their families.
“It is wrong to take children – innocent boys and girls – and use them as instruments in any struggle,” Rachel Frenkel told the council on Tuesday morning at the end of its quarterly debate on agenda item 7, the human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories. It is the only permanent item on the council’s agenda.
Frenkel was joined at the Human Rights Council in Geneva by Bat-Galim Shaar and Iris Yifrach, the mothers of the other two boys, Gilad Shaar and Eyal Yifrach, who were kidnapped from a junction in Gush Etzion as they returned home from school on Dec. 12.
“Much more can be done and should be done by everyone,” Frenkel told the council. “I ask everyone to do whatever they can to bring back our boys.”
Frenkel said that Naftali sent a text message telling her that he was on his way home, and “since then we have heard nothing,” she told the council.
“Every mother’s nightmare is waiting and waiting for her son to come home,” she said. She described the boys to the council.
Frenkel took the floor during the time slot allotted to the NGO UN Watch.
Prior to her speech, member countries of the council criticized Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians, referring specifically to the operation in the West Bank in recent days to locate and recover the teens, but without mentioning the kidnapping. The mothers sat among other NGO speakers who also rebuked Israel, including accusing it of war crimes.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Security Council on Monday failed to agree on a statement condemning the kidnapping of the Israeli teens and “deploring” the deaths of 6 Palestinians during Israeli military operations to locate and return the teens.
Jordan reportedly wanted stronger language regarding the deaths of the Palestinians, and the United States said it would not approve a statement that directly criticized Israel.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
