KARACHI: An 88-year-old Holocaust survivor has condemned Israel’s ongoing military offensive in Gaza, calling it ‘genocidal’ and accusing Western governments and media of failing to confront the scale of Palestinian suffering.
Appearing on British television channel ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Thursday, Stephen Kapos recounted how he was forced into hiding as a child in Nazi-occupied Budapest, separated from his mother while his father was deported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Drawing parallels between his own experience and the plight of Palestinians, he said watching the destruction in Gaza was “absolutely horrendous”.
“The suffering of the Palestinian people rhymes with the suffering that we experienced”, Kapos said. “You do not free hostages by bombing. Everyone knows that. This is more about Netanyahu’s political survival than anything genuine”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly claimed that the campaign in Gaza is aimed at destroying Hamas and securing the release of hostages, while his office has insisted Israel does not intend to permanently occupy the territory. But Kapos argued that such justifications ring hollow, warning that waiting for international courts to label the campaign a genocide would render action meaningless, saying that “By the time the official words come out, it would all be over. You could never stop a genocide that way”.