© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Alpine Snowboarding – FIS Alpine Ski World Cup – Males’s Downhill – Kitzbuehel, Austria – January 21, 2023 Arnold Schwarzenegger through the Males’s Downhill REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger/File Picture
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By Omar Younis
SANTA MONICA, California (Reuters) – Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday met family members of three folks seized by Hamas in Israel and now held in Gaza, lending his movie star to help these whose family members are nonetheless unaccounted for following the Oct. 7 assault.
Schwarzenegger gave bronze eagle sculptures to his guests at a video manufacturing firm in Santa Monica, simply west of Los Angeles. In flip they offered Schwarzenegger with “Bring Them Home” canine tags.
Declaring himself “a big friend of the Jewish people and Israel,” Schwarzenegger stated he needed to amplify the message to not abandon those that stay captive.
Israel says Hamas, the militant group that guidelines Gaza, took 240 hostages within the Oct. 7 assault that additionally killed 1,200 folks and set off a Center East conflict.
Throughout a seven-day pause in combating that ended on Friday, officers stated 110 hostages – 86 Israelis and 24 foreigners – had been launched in change for Palestinian detainees, whereas the our bodies of two hostages had been recovered by Israeli troops.
“This is where I come in because when you’re a celebrity, then you have a certain kind of a power to communicate to the mass because you have a lot of cameras show up,” stated Schwarzenegger, the previous champion bodybuilder and Hollywood display screen star whose present enterprise profession was interrupted by his time as governor from 2003 to 2011.
Amongst these assembly the “Terminator” star was Bar Rudaeff, 27, whose father Lior Rudaeff, 61, was taken from the Kibbutz Nir Yitzchak. He stated Schwarzenegger was considered one of his father’s favourite actors.
“I remember watching a ‘Terminator’ movie with him in the living room. And I know that when he comes back, it will put a smile on his face,” Rudaeff stated.
Schwarzenegger additionally met with Jacob Bohbot, 36, whose brother Elkana Bohbot, 34, was taken from the Nova music pageant in Israel close to the border with Gaza, and with Ella Shani, 14, whose cousin Amit Shani, 16, was kidnapped within the assault on Kibbutz Be’eri, taken to the Gaza Strip, and launched on Wednesday. Ella’s father, Itzik Kozin, was killed within the kibbutz assault.
The assembly was organized by the Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem.
