JNS
Fernando Marman, kidnapped by Hamas with his family and released by the IDF, chose the event to talk publicly for the first time.
Survivors of Hamas's Oct. 7, 2023, invasion joined prominent members of the Israeli Latin American community, ambassadors, journalists and other guests in a packed theater at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art on May 28 to watch two episodes of a new four-part miniseries that showcases Latinos who were affected by the attack.
The series, titled “7/O: Testigos del Terror” (“10/7: Witnesses of Terror”), is in Spanish with subtitles in English. According to a press release, it "is the only docuseries chronicling the Hamas massacre and its aftermath from the perspective of Latin American immigrants in Israel."
Just weeks after the attack, the release said, filmmakers from the Miami-based NGO, Fuente Latina, traveled to Israel, where they interviewed dozens of Latinos who survived the massacre. Fuente Latina was founded by Leah Soibel, a Jewish American Middle East expert whose parents emigrated from Argentina, in 2012 to provide news and commentary on the Middle East to Spanish-language news outlets.
“The unique angle of this film is not only that it looks at Oct. 7 through a Latino lens, but also that it delves into the very particular migratory experiences of Latinos in Israel,” said Soibel, who serves as executive director of Fuente Latina.
“It is very interesting to note that this immigrant community constitutes a significant part of the Israeli population and was a fundamental pillar in the establishment of the kibbutzim on the Gaza border that were the main target of the Hamas attack,” she added.
After the screening, sister and brother Clara and Fernando Marman, immigrants from Argentina, spoke to the audience about their harrowing ordeal in Hamas captivity.
Clara, together with her partner Luis Har, sister Gabriela, brother Fernando, niece Mia, and Mia's puppy, Bella, were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak on Oct. 7. The women were released in the first ceasefire in November 2023. Luis and Fernando remained with their captors in Gaza.
“After Clara, Gabriel and Mia left Gaza in the first exchange, we thought it was only a matter of days before we too would be freed. But nothing happened,” Fernando said, speaking publicly about the experience for the first time. “Then Luis and I started talking about what would happen if they came to rescue us. We imagined where they would come from, where they would enter. We always kept that hope alive—that it could really happen."
He continued the dramatic story as the audience held onto every word.
“And then the night of Feb. 12 arrived. It was 1:50 a.m., and we were sleeping. In the room where we were, there was a door that opened onto a second-floor balcony. Suddenly, a loud explosion was heard that blew the door open. Since I was sleeping near the entrance, the explosion turned me completely around.”
Fernando recounted that when he turned his head, he saw some figures shouting at him, saying they were from the army. He had been held in captivity five times fewer than the hostages now held in Gaza.
“I can't believe it. Living through this for 600 days is impossible, impossible! We need to reach an agreement as soon as possible,” he pleaded.
Argentina's Ambassador to Israel, Rabbi Shimon Axel Wahnish, said that he had been struck by a phrase from the docuseries: "It was said that the bodies were smoking like in the Holocaust. And if the Shoah brought out the worst in humanity and one thought 'Never Again,' Oct. 7 reminded us all as human beings that 'Never Again' is precisely now."
