In a patch of grass Saturday at Balboa Park sat two long tables set for Shabbat dinner. The 229 chairs were empty, but each represented a person taken by Hamas on Oct. 7 in Israel. Each chair featured a photo of the person it represented.
The display was designed to be a reminder that more than 200 people — including several children — remain captive after they were kidnapped in the surprise attack. Organizers noted that Saturday marked the third Shabbat, or Sabbath, that the victims have spent in captivity.
More than 1,400 people were slain in Israel during the Oct. 7 attack, including at least 310 soldiers, according to the Israeli government. As of Saturday, four of the more than 200 hostages taken into Gaza have been released.
The Palestinian death toll passed 7,700 on Saturday, most of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza. In the occupied West Bank, more than 110 Palestinians have been killed in violence and Israeli raids.
Saturday’s event was on the grass near a playground behind the Fleet Center and along Park Boulevard.
People — scores throughout the day — walked around the display, stopping to read the names, look the pictures and, sometimes, leave a flower on an empty plate.
Two seats featured a balloon to represent that particular kidnap victims had a birthday since they were taken three weeks ago. One of them was a boy taken at age 9.
Organizers said they have held several local events, such as car rallies, in support the victims, and will continue to do so. The idea is to keep up awareness until the people who were taken are back home.
Among those who stopped by were two Canadian women — a mother and adult daughter on vacation — who stumbled across the event during a visit to Balboa Park. The older woman, who laid a flower one of of the dinner plates, said she is part of a group that has been praying for peace for Israelis and Palestinians.
At the end of the longer of the two tables sat a high chair, which featured a photo of the youngest victim, a 9-month old boy.
Stuffed animals were blindfolded on a Shabbat dinner table to represent people kidnapped by Hamas in Israel on Oct. 7. The table was part of a display at Balboa Park on Saturday.
(Meg McLaughlin/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
The display included a children’s table. That, too, had photos of young kidnap victims on the back of chairs. On the table were stuffed animals — many of them blindfolded.
Among those at the dinner display was San Diego resident Aviv, who is 13 years old and in the seventh grade. He said the situation is “heartbreaking,” and that he cries about what happened.
“I look at all the people that are kidnapped, and all the children that are kidnapped that are my age. They could have been my sister. Me. Anyone,” said the boy, whose mother asked that his last name not be printed for security reasons.
“I just want everybody to know that Israel wants peace, and that all the people that have been kidnapped and brutally beat, they want to come home. Let them come home please.”
Travis Hawley, 26, was in Tel Aviv on Oct. 7, and woke up to sirens warning people to seek cover. The U.S. native eventually found himself with others hunkered in a stairwell. Hawley, who said he is a former military member and was once stationed in Afghanistan, said his hands shook — unlike anything he’d experienced under fire in the military — as he texted goodbyes to friends and family.
“If we want to even entertain restraint and cease fires and things of that nature then give back these people to their families,” Hawley said.
The event was personal for 23-year-old Alli, who said said she grew up in San Diego, and lives in Israel now. She was there the day of the attack, and said she felt “panic.”
“It was very scary, honestly, because we didn’t know what was going to happen,” she said. Like others at the event, Alli asked that her last name not be printed for safety reasons.
She said the remembrances like Saturday’s event “are very important to show our solidarity, and to show that we haven’t forgotten about them.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
