Daughter of Canadian slain in Gaza says leaders let hostages down

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No matter how close things get toward achieving peace, there’s just no getting over your parents being shot, kidnapped and murdered by Hamas.

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So, it’s a bittersweet time for the daughter of kidnapped and slain parents with Toronto ties on Oct. 7, 2023.

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As the deadline approaches for the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza, there’s relief and happiness that those 20 remaining alive hostages are scheduled to be coming home from inside of their Gazan dungeon. But there is also profound anger and sadness that not enough was done in the beginning to make sure Iris Haggai Liniado’s mom and dad were among the survivors of this evil slaughter.

While thankful the remaining detained people in Gaza are expected to soon be released to Israel by Hamas, the daughter of the Canadian woman who was kidnapped Oct. 7 and later murdered said there is no excuse that it took this long.

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Blames Trudeau and Carney

And the daughter of slain Canadian hostage Judih Weinstein Haggai puts a lot of that blame on the Justin Trudeau Liberals and the Mark Carney government that followed.

“I pleaded with the Canadian government to take that role this whole time,” Iris Haggai Liniado told the Toronto Sun from Singapore, where she now lives.

Her pleas fell on deaf ears. The first failure was on Trudeau. The second is on his replacement as prime minister, Carney.

“Not only have they not” taken a leadership role to demand the return of the hostages “they chose to abandon leadership and appease terror and the murderers of eight Canadian citizens by rewarding it with a state,” Liniado said.

There is a lot of blame to spread around – former U.S. president Joe Biden deserves some, as do many European leaders who seemed more concerned with working out a two-state solution in Israel and granting Palestine state status than drawing a line in the sand and demanding that every stolen person be returned first.

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Lack of real leadership

“Imagine there was real leadership on October 8, 2023, that could have pressed the Arab world to force Hamas to release all 253 hostages, countless lives could have been saved,” Liniado said. “But we had to wait for President Trump for two years instead, which is proof that with the right leadership it was possible.”

She will never know if decisive action could have saved her parents, Judih, 70, and her Israeli-American husband Gadi Haggai, 72.

“They were both shot Oct. 7 on the Nir-Oz kibbutz,” she told me just after this barbaric Black Sabbath terror slaughter occurred at the music festival and amongst those in the kibbutz that saw 1,200 Israeli’s murdered and 240 kidnapped.

At that time, she hoped her parents were still alive, despite being struck with bullets.

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They needed to get to a hospital. They needed an immediate rescue. Neither happened.

“We know that their cellphones were traced to Gaza,” she said. “On the day of the attack, my mother did explain over WhatsApp what had happened. It was very graphic: My father was shot in the head, and she was shot in the face and arm.”

Neither lived and their bodies were eventually recovered.

“I am overwhelmed with the feeling of betrayal by this government who did absolutely nothing to help me bring my parents home,” Liniado said. “Carney didn’t even bother contacting me when my parents were brought to burial by the IDF and FBI, or any of the Canadian victims’ families ever.”

This cannot be fixed.

And people like Trudeau or Carney are not held to account in Canada the same way as Tamara Lich and Chris Barber were for leading the Truckers Convoy.

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Suspicious of peace deal

Liniado’s focus now is on this peace process, which she admits she’s dubious about.

“Calling this deal a peace deal is insanity because you cannot have real peace with terrorists,” she said. “This is a deal that will bring our hostages home, and that’s all that matters after two years of hell.”

She’s watching closely and praying for the best.

“Nine of the hostages are from my kibbutz, Nir Oz, a very tight small community of 400 people, where one out of four were either murdered or kidnapped,” Liniado said, adding, “Three of them are good friends of ours, the Cunio brothers, David and Ariel, and Tamir Adar.”

She can relate to what all of the families are going through right now.

“I can’t explain the feeling of not knowing the fate of your loved one held by evil terrorists, not knowing in what state they will return, if at all,” she said. “But I’m hopeful that Trump will bring all 48 hostages home, those who are living to rehabilitate in their loving families’ arms, and those who are deceased to respectful burial at home.”

It’s not perfect, but it’s been a long time coming.

jwarmington@postmedia.com

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