The victims of 7 October the world chose to ignore

They came to Israel to build a better life. To work, to study, to send money home, so their kids could go to school, so their families would not go hungry, so they could return with crucial knowledge and experience to improve the quality of life for their communities.

They had names that most would struggle to pronounce correctly. They came from places most Western activists would only ever have visited on their gap year. Thailand, Nepal, Tanzania, The Philippines, Sri Lanka, Cambodia.

They picked fruit and vegetables. They cared for and nursed the infirm and the elderly. They studied and gained valuable experience in agriculture.

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These foreign, wholly innocent and unconnected victims, totally debunk any notion of “resistance.” These were not the acts of “freedom fighters”. Just indiscriminate, sadistic torture, mutilation and mass murder of everyone and anyone they could find. From the outset, that was their sole intent.

On 7 October, 2023, Hamas slaughtered them with the same medieval brutality, perpetrated on the Israelis. The world should know their stories and their names.

Tanzania –  Students who came to learn how to feed their communities.

·        Clemence Felix Mtenga, 22, came from a small village in the Rombo region near Kilimanjaro. He arrived at Kibbutz Nir Oz three weeks before October 7, part of an Israeli training initiative, designed to help poor Tanzanian families lift themselves out of poverty through agriculture.

He was brutally murdered. His body lay there for forty-one days before being identified and flown home. He’s buried in his village under a Hebrew verse chosen by his father, Deuteronomy 20:19–20

“When you besiege a city for a long time… you shall not destroy its fruit trees… for is the tree of the field a man, that it should be besieged by you?” —

·        Joshua Loitu Mollel, 21, arrived at Kibbutz Nahal Oz just 19 days before the massacre, full of plans to bring modern farming home to Tanzania.

Terrorists filmed themselves brutally murdering the young man, stabbing and shooting him at point-blank range. They posted their crime on Telegram. The film was verified by Human Rights Watch. His body was dragged into Gaza and held as a hostage corpse for over two years. His remains were finally returned and identified on November 10th 2025

A poor Black African student came to Israel to learn drip irrigation. Hamas ended his life in a sadistic “snuff” video.

Thailand – Simple farm workers, sending money back to their families. Saving up to buy land at home and a better future for them and their communities.

After Israelis, the largest group of victims by nationality were Thai.

Human Rights Watch (no friend of Israel) cited Thailand’s Foreign Ministry. 32 Thais were murdered, 22 abducted, and 19 wounded. Later tallies push the death toll above 40.

Twelve Thai workers were executed at Kibbutz Alumim.

A video taken by the terrorist, and presented at the UN by the Israeli Ambassador, showed one of them being hacked to death and beheaded with a garden hoe, as he lay helpless on the ground. The Hamas terrorist screaming “Allah hu Akbar,” as he hacked away.

The victim wasn’t Jewish. He wasn’t Israeli. He wasn’t a “white settler colonialist.” He was a Thai migrant working abroad to help his family. The “resistance” viciously decapitated him on camera.

Nepal – Agricultural students hiding in a shelter

Seventeen Nepali agriculture students were at Kibbutz Alumim. They had come to learn modern farming and return home with new skills.

At dawn, Hamas gunmen surrounded their dorm, throwing grenades and firing blindly. Ten were killed, six wounded, one, Bipin Joshi, 23, was taken hostage.

Before he was dragged away, Bipin bravely picked up a live grenade and hurled it back, saving classmates. His friends desperately hoped to see him return from captivity in Gaza. However, he was murdered in captivity and spent two years in Gaza before his body was returned in October 2025. His body was returned to his family draped in a Nepalese flag. Try telling his mother 7 October was an “act of resistance”, aimed at military targets.

Cambodia – A  foreign student murdered in his apartment.

Chan Oudom , a veterinary-science student from Phnom Penh, was on placement at Kibbutz Holit, near the Gaza border. His apartment was struck by Hamas rockets on the morning of 7 October. He was killed instantly.

Chan Oudom was part of an 11-month agricultural internship program, run in collaboration with international training centers such as “Agrostudies” and MASHAV, Israel’s Official International Development Cooperation Program. It brings students from developing countries to Israel to learn about modern agricultural techniques. He was one of over 400 Cambodian students participating in such programs in Israel at the time.

His body was flown back to Cambodia. The king and prime minister sent official condolences. Just one more name the West never bothered to learn.

Foreign Caregivers Who Simply Refused to Abandon Their Elderly or Infirm Charges

If anything exposes the lie that Hamas “didn’t target civilians,” it is the inspirational behaviour, and tragic story of these incredible, dedicated individuals.

At Kibbutz Be’eri, four caregivers died doing their jobs:

·        45-year-old, Grace Cabrera, from the Philippines was caring for Aviva Sela, 95, a Holocaust survivor. Grace held the safe-room door shut for hours before being shot and dragged outside. Aviva miraculously survived.

·        42-year-old, Paul Vincent Castalvi, from The Philippines, was caring for Evyatar “Tari” Kipnis, an artist and peace activist who suffered from an auto-immune disease. Paul, Tari and Tari’s wife Lilach, were all murdered. Paul’s wife, Javelle gave birth to their first child,  just months later. Their son Jason Paul, will never know his father.

·        49-year-old, Anola Ratanika, from Sri Lanka was caring for Esther (Eti) Mordo, 97 years old and blind. . Both murdered in their safe room.

·        48-year-old Sujit Yatawara, from Sri Lanka was caring for 75-year-old,  Haim Zohar. Both were also murdered.

Be’eri’s director said simply: “They were not part of this conflict. They were dragged into it.”

At Kibbutz Kfar Aza, 32-year-old Angelyn (Angie) Aguirre, from The Philippines, refused to leave Nira Ronen (86), the elderly woman she cared for. She held the safe-room door shut while gunmen forced it open. They shot both women dead.

Scrawled in Arabic on the wall, was, “You’ll die, and you won’t stay here.” That’s a chant their supporters in the West must have missed.

At Kibbutz Nirim, 31-year-old, Camille Figueras Jesalva, from The Philippines, cared for Nitza Hefetz (95), a Holocaust survivor. When a Hamas fighter burst in, Camille handed him her entire life savings and begged him not to shoot. Her savings had been intended for a planned trip home. The terrorist took the cash and simply left them alone. Camille had saved her own and Nitza’s life. Camille later said she felt guilty for surviving. Israelis called her a hero, which she undoubtedly is.

Despite the danger and opportunities to escape, these incredible individuals chose  to stay behind. Most paid with their lives. Yet the international community ignores their heroism and selfless acts.

Arabs and Bedouins – Hamas didn’t differentiate on religion

Hamas also murdered and kidnapped fellow Muslims, Arab citizens of Israel.

·        Awad Darawshe, 23, an Arab-Israeli paramedic, was treating wounded at the Nova festival when Hamas gunmen shot him dead in his medic’s vest

·        The Ziyadne family from Rahat — Youssef Hamis Ziyadne (53) and his children Hamza (22), Bilal (18), and Aisha (17) — were kidnapped while working near the border. Bilal and Aisha were later freed; Youssef’s and Hamza’s bodies were recovered from Gaza in 2025.

·        Naama Abu Rashed, a Bedouin baby delivered by emergency C-section after her mother had been shot by the terrorists, where the bullet had also hit the foetus, lived but 14 hours. Officially the youngest victim of the slaughter.

Apparently, for Hamas, “liberation” doesn’t apply to their Arab brethren in Israel.

Intersectionality – Selective by Design

Pro- Palestinian, or more accurately, anti-Israel protesters in the West love to chant, “from Ferguson to Gaza.”

The slogan was born in 2014 during the Ferguson riots, tying U.S. policing to Israel. It’s now standard at every protest, a bridge between Black Lives Matter and Palestinian “resistance.” The epitome of “intersectionality”, where all struggles of the oppressed against the oppressors are connected.

So, let’s test it….

Are Tanzanians not people of colour? Do their black lives not matter? Are poor Thai farm workers not part of the socially oppressed? Do Nepalese students not suffer discrimination”? Are Filipina and Sri Lankan carers not migrant women of the global South?

They died as victims in the same fields, shelters and bedrooms where these progressive slogans pretend solidarity lives. But they are ignored. Apparently, intersectionality only works when the victims are useful and serve your narrative. It’s obscene, not to mention the height of hypocrisy.

The Truth They Can’t Spin

Human Rights Watch calls 7 October a “widespread and systematic assault on civilians” amounting to crimes against humanity. I expect that stuck in their craw.

However, bottom line… For Hamas on 7 October, slaughtering innocents, and taking them hostage weren’t accidents, they were the plan from the outset.

Joshua’s brutal murder was filmed. Clemence was shot down and left in the dust. Bipin’s heroism ended, executed in a Gaza tunnel. Grace, Paul, Anola, Sujit and Angelyn died alongside their elderly charges. Camille bargained for life with her meagre life savings. Awad was shot, attending to the wounded. Naama was dead before she had a chance at life.

The world’s oppressed. The poor. The “Global South.” Foreign nationals who had left their families, to work in foreign lands, to provide a better life and return to them.

Hamas butchered them all.

If you are not outraged, you’re complicit. If fighting for justice doesn’t include every one of them, then it’s not justice at all. If you are still all Hamas, if you still believe they are legitimate “resistance”, or “freedom fighters”, then you are not on the ‘right side of history”, you are not a “justice warrior”, you are not virtuous. You are a charlatan, and a sick and depraved one at that.

As for the wider world… Say their names. Tell their stories That’s the very least we owe them.

• https://substack.com/@garycohen22