‘I need their bodies, I need to bury my parents’: ex Australian resident Iris Weinstein-Haggai
Iris Weinstein-Haggai, a textile designer who lived in Sydney’s Bondi, believes her parents were murdered on October 7. She wants the Australian Government, and world leaders, to call for the unconditional release of their remains.
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A woman whose parents were taken hostages in the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel has made an impassioned plea for their release.
“I need closure, I need to bury their bodies,” Iris Weinstein-Haggai said.
Judi Weinstein Haggai and Gadi Haggai were gunned down and taken hostages during their morning walk through fields surrounding their kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel as Hamas militants assassinated dozens around them.
“He’s been shot in the head, we both have been shot, by terrorists on motorcycles” was the last in a series of conversations Judi had with emergency services MDA.
Mr Haggi’s daughter, Weinstein-Haggai, a textile designer who lived in Sydney’s Bondi for four years until 2020, believes her parents were murdered - but wants the Australian Government, and world leaders, to call for the unconditional release of their remains, after Donald Trump’s message to order the “immediate” release of hostages “otherwise all hell will break loose”.
“I know from intel they're dead but I need closure, I want their bodies back, they deserve a burial,” the mother of three said from her home in Singapore.
“They were massacred and taken hostage to Gaza and their bodies are used as bargaining chips,” she said haltingly.
“The day they were murdered, twenty nine of my friends and their babies from their kibbutz were seized and held hostage, - not just my parents.
“I want all 100 hostages released unconditionally.
“My parents were hiding from hundreds of rockets when Hamas attacked.
“Somewhere between 6.50 and 6.56 they were killed. At 7.20am the phone shut off.
“Just somebody find them, please,” she pleaded.
Ms Weinstein, 39, says her mother, 70, who left America for life in Israel where she met her father, 72, wants Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and world leaders, to call for the unconditional release of all hostages and designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an extension of the Islamic regime in Iran, as a terrorist group.
“My family and I lived in Sydney for four years, – there’s a great sense of freedom in Australia, but it contradicts what the country is doing right now,” she said.
“This war has claimed 1200 innocent people and kidnapped 250 people in Gaza who are in torture dungeons that Australia is funding through United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.”
“It’s not lost on me that thousands of Palestinians are still dying. But I want my parents back,” she said.
The nation’s peak Jewish body Executive Council of Australian Jewry said the plight of hostages is an “inconvenient” reminder of the weakness of the international system.
“It is unimaginable how greatly their parents, siblings and children suffer knowing they are being held by monsters so close to Israel and yet out of reach, said ECAJ co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin.
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