Four Canadians who lost family members in the October 7 attacks gathered virtually on Sunday to celebrate the pending return of the final hostages, mourn those who were lost, and in one case harshly criticize the federal government for failing to help them.
“From day one, I can’t really say the Canadian government did very much for us,” Montrealer Raquel Ohnona Look, whose son Alexandre Look, 33, was killed at the Nova music festival, told 1,500 viewers, speaking of the families of eight Canadians murdered by Hamas.
“We have a shameful leader” she said of Prime Minister Mark Carney, “that decided to recognize the Palestinian state while we still had our hostages in the dungeons, and while Hamas is still very much in power. And of course, this statement came out of Rosh Hashanah. We have mayors in both Montreal and Toronto that do nothing to keep us, our students, or anyone, safe. Police forces do not do anything but bystanding.”
She added, however, that the Donald Trump-brokered deal “renews our belief that there’s always hope” and that “it’ll be another step in us trying to somehow move forward.”
Called Together in this Moment: Conversations with Families & Victims of October 7, the video gathering was led by Canadian advocacy group Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), in partnership with Jewish federations across the country.
There were 48 hostages still held in Gaza on Sunday — primarily Israelis, with some foreign nationals — with approximately 20 believed to be alive, based on recent reports.
Ohnona Look added: “I can’t imagine how long two years must have felt, because I had to wait three weeks for my Alex to come home, and be buried, and it was the most excruciating pain, I can’t even describe. So closure for families, if there is such a thing, just having a place to go, to gather, to remember, I bring some solace to them.”
Hamilton, Ont.-born beauty influencer Ashley Waxman Bakshi moved to Israel 19 years ago, and after the Hamas-led massacre became an activist, using her social media platform to raise awareness when her cousin Agam Berger, 20, was taken hostage October 7 and held for 482 days.
“I can’t even, you know, put into words how difficult it was when she was gone,” she said.
Berger’s steadfast faith in the face of being in the “dungeons of Hamas, kept in high-ranking terrorists’ homes, made to do humiliating things,” inspired Waxman Bakshi and her family to “be more connected to our faith.”
Waxman Bakshi acknowledged the “immense pain that we are feeling in Israel, from releasing these 2,000 terrorists, especially the ones with the with the blood on their hands” and that the West isn’t immune from terror either. “Hamas is an enemy to Canada as well.”
Ohad Lapidot, originally from Regina, Sask., is the father of Tiferet Lapidot, 22, a Canadian-Israeli woman who worked with at-risk youth in Israel and in Africa, and was murdered at the Nova Festival.
“The release of the hostages is a great relief for us after two years of a long nightmare.”
Like Waxman Bakshi, Lapidot warned that an attack is “going to happen in another places. No doubt about that,” and cautioned that “our enemies cannot raise their head again, and repeat what they’ve done.”
Jacqui Rivers Vital, an Ottawa resident whose daughter, Adi Vital-Kaploun, was killed defending her family in Kibbutz Holit on October 7, told viewers she is “really happy for all the families who are getting their loved ones back, whether they’re alive or whether they’re dead, but at least they’re going to be able to bury them the way we did.”
Rivers Vital has another daughter who, with her three small children, hid for 14 hours during the Hamas-led attacks.
She said she is on a mission to educate elected officials about the eight Canadians whose lives were taken on October 7, “because they don’t know.”
She also wants the public to know her daughter was a “hero” for killing a terrorist before being shot herself.
“I am a proud mother. I’m a sad mother. But I have two grandsons who are alive. I have a husband who’s alive. He was there that day. He’s a survivor. I have a lot to be thankful for,” she said.
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