"Keeping a monster behind a wall is no longer acceptable, thinkable, livable. In Israel there is a desire to end it once and for all." Sabina Mayer is an Italian lawyer who has lived in Tel Aviv for almost 30 years. And what happened on October 7 in the south of the country he would never have imagined: "It was a terrible shock, an enormous pain, to see those atrocious images: the unthinkable happened," he said in an interview with ANSA in his studio on the ninth floor of a skyscraper near the sea, the same one where the Italian embassy is located.
Since that Saturday morning, everything has changed for her too: "My son, 27 years old, a graduate, with a job in high tech, was called back by the army with a phone call: 'Go to the base immediately, get a uniform, they will give you a weapon and go fight'. So my son had to leave his life at any moment," she says, describing "the stress of every mother." Because, he explains, "the army is made up of sons, husbands, brothers, fathers of each one of us, it is our family." "Even my colleagues have taken off their uniforms, we all have to do our part."
One of the military bases in southern Israel attacked by Hamas was the same one where his daughter, now a 24-year-old student, had done her military service until four years ago. "If there was one place he thought was safe, it was it, he knew every nook and cranny of that base. This created terrible anguish for her and terrible pain for those involved," says the lawyer.
"Now Israel is responding and we expect a very tough response, because we can't live with a monster behind the wall. No democratic or European country would tolerate this, because it endangers the life of every person, of every child," he continues. "Maybe the enemy thought that the country was divided" by political uncertainty and protests against Netanyahu, "and that it was the right time to attack. But he made a mistake: he got the opposite effect, the country is more united than before," Mayer adds. "Many Israelis who previously never wanted the army to enter Gaza are now saying they are doing away with Hamas. There is no more choice, this monster must cease to exist, him, those behind him, his fellow human beings who threaten Israel," Mayer said.
On concern for the civilian population of Gaza, the lawyer assures: "No one in Israel wants to kill children, women, civilians. I would like to say it: none." But "if Hamas forbids them to flee to use them as a shield and if Egypt does not open its doors, unfortunately losses will be inevitable and Hamas will be solely responsible."
The situation is unstable and "it doesn't seem like a short thing", but the Italian has no intention of leaving Israel. "My bond with Italy is very strong," confesses Mayer, with a photo of his grandparents at La Scala after the war. But his life is in Tel Aviv, his children, his work: "We all have to work for the country, Israel has to move forward."
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