Among the bullets and rockets in Israel, there are still those who celebrate weddings. The Perez family was one of those who did not want to postpone the ceremony, even though it was different from what they had envisioned for the big day. The groom, 24-year-old Yonatan Perez, was wounded in the leg during a battle with Hamas snipers who invaded Israeli communities near the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, a day that will mark the resumption of war in Israel.
Jonathan Perez’s younger brother, 22-year-old Daniel, went missing after the attack.
“How to celebrate your son’s wedding if you know that the second one is missing and God knows where he is?” asked the father, 53-year-old Rabbi Doron Perez.
Doron Perez told Reuters that he had discussed the possibility of not holding the wedding on the planned date, but Jonathan, his bride and her family decided to go ahead with the ceremony regardless of the situation. “This is an impossible situation. But I think the Jewish people throughout our history have faced impossible situations, and people are called to deal with impossible situations,” Perez said.
Doron said Jonathan, the eldest son and a soldier in the airborne brigade, was at home on the morning of October 7 when his commander ordered soldiers to march to Sderot, where Palestinian militants were attacking. Youngest son Daniel served in a tank unit at the Nahal Oz military base, which was also attacked.
The father said he didn’t hear anything until the end of the day, until Jonathan called him. “He said, ‘Dad, I’m fine, I was shot in the leg,’” his father recalls. Regarding the whereabouts of his youngest son, Doron later learned that the tank had been hit and that one crew member was killed and three others were missing, the IDF later confirmed.
“Obviously there is a high level of reasonableness in the fact that he could have been captured, we understand that. But his definition is “missing in action,” Perez said.
Israeli authorities estimate that about 200 people may have been taken hostage in the Gaza Strip.
Author: Philippa Novais
Source: CM Jornal
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