The Jerusalem Post – Grapevine, October 23, 2024

B’nai B’rith hosted Father Patrick Desbois, a preeminent global leader in promoting human rights and documenting mass atrocities, in Israel to mark one year since the Oct. 7th attacks.

Read more about Father Desbois’ first visit to Israel since Oct. 7 in the Jerusalem Post.

B’nai B’rith International this month hosted Father Patrick Desbois, a preeminent global leader in promoting human rights and documenting mass atrocities. He arrived in Israel on the first anniversary of the October 7 attacks by Hamas and just days after the largest-ever direct Iranian missile strikes on Israel.

Wanting to make his own assessments and assemble his own reports, Desbois visited the terror sites, had personal encounters with those most directly impacted by the Hamas and Hezbollah onslaught in northern and southern Israel, and held meetings with key officials, analysts and civil society figures. This was his first visit to Israel since the violent rampage last year.

Desbois is the author of The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest’s Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews and The Terrorist Factory: ISIS, the Yazidi Genocide, and Exporting Terror.

A former head of the Commission for Relations with Judaism of the French Bishops’ Conference and a consultant to the Vatican, Desbois is a recipient of France’s highest award, the Légion d’honneur, as well as the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Cross of Merit which 1st Class), Germany’s highest honor. He has received awards from B’nai B’rith among many others.

The human rights leader’s arrival was immediately marked by multiple sirens, requiring him to shelter at Ben-Gurion International Airport from new incoming fire by Iran’s regional proxies.

Nonetheless, accompanied by B’nai B’rith World Center-Jerusalem Director Alan Schneider and B’nai B’rith International UN and Intercommunal Affairs Director David Michaels, he attended the national memorial ceremony led by families of the 101 Israeli and international hostages still held in the Gaza Strip. In Tel Aviv, the booms of Israeli interceptions of hostile projectiles were repeatedly felt and heard.

In the days that followed, Desbois observed the devastation of Kibbutz Be’eri, the harrowing scene of burnt-out cars in T’kuma and the site of the Nova music festival massacre.

He met with Qaid Farhan al-Qadi, a Bedouin Israeli hostage freed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from Hamas captivity, and with Mirjam Bait Talmi, a 90-year-old Holocaust survivor who survived the Palestinian invasion near Kibbutz Zikim, where she has lived since 1955.

Desbois inspected weapons confiscated from the terrorists; spoke with personnel at the Shura Base where the IDF rabbinate tended to an unprecedented number of bodies of slain victims, many of them mutilated; and met privately with close relatives of hostages Omri Miran and Gadi Moses.

He also held discussions with the director of the Foreign Affairs Ministry’s human rights department, the IDF Spokesperson’s Office, the chairwoman of the Civil Commission on Oct. 7th Crimes Against Women and Children, leaders of research institutions specializing in terrorism and strategic affairs, and the founder of Palestinian Media Watch, who detailed official Palestinian incitement to and incentivizing of jihadist violence against Israeli civilians.

Additionally, Desbois learned about efforts by Israel’s National Library to document the October 7 atrocities, and at Sheba Medical Center he met Israeli soldiers who have undergone amputations after sustaining grave injuries during Israel’s ongoing defensive campaigns over the past year.

“Without having visited the scenes of the horrific crimes perpetrated by members of Hamas against the civilians of the southern kibbutz; without having contemplated the devastated and ransacked houses; without witnessing the tears shed by thousands of young people at the October 7 ceremonies; without having taken the time to visit the hospital where many young people are trying to rebuild their lives despite the amputation of a leg or an arm; without having heard the shrill sound of sirens as soon as we landed, announcing a missile from Yemen, I realized, from all sides, how Hamas and its allies have united to destroy the people of Israel,” Desbois said.

“Hamas, entrenched in its tunnels under schools and hospitals, has never protected Palestinian civilians, who are also perishing without even having access to underground shelters,” he continued. “Despite everything, I remain hopeful of a peaceful future in which all peoples can live in harmony and security.”

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Desbois’s founding of Yahad – In Unum (together in one), an organization that uncovered widely unknown or forgotten Holocaust-era mass shooting sites across Eastern Europe. Over the course of the past two decades, it identified more than 2,900 such massacre sites and documented over 7,000 witness testimonies related to the war crimes of the Nazi Einsatzgruppen death squads.

Desbois subsequently expanded his focus to address modern-day violence, group hatred and antisemitism.

Since 2015, his organization has extended its research to northern Iraq in order to expose perpetrators behind ISIS genocide against Yazidis in 2014. Recently, the organization’s activity has also extended to Ukraine.

Through its global educational programs training both students and educators in Europe, the United States and Latin America, Yahad – In Unum gives grassroots individuals an understanding of the horrific consequences of fanatic ideologies.

Schneider noted that the visit of Desbois was highly valuable, having raised new potential avenues for the prosecution of anti-Israel terrorists.

Michaels welcomed the opportunity to highlight fundamental realities in the region, while bolstering solidarity with Israel’s diverse citizens at one of their most difficult hours.