Saturday, October 5, 2024 at 12pm. The Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilus III, the Greek Ambassador to Israel Kyriakos Loukakis, the Consul General Dimitrios Angelosopoulos and around 2,000 relatives and friends, descended on the Zion Greek Orthodox Cemetery, near the ancient city of Jerusalem, to pay tribute to the murdered Greek . student architect Iona Karousis and to support her parents, Dimitris and Rania, in their grief.
Jonas – may his memory be eternal – 26 years old, although young, he made the Greek Community of Jerusalem proud with his ethos, his character, his talents and his achievements.
Yonas was murdered by two Palestinian terrorists at Jaffa railway station on the afternoon of October 1st.. On the same day, Iran launched an attack on Israel with 181 ballistic missiles targeting cities and communities across the country.
These events come about a year after Saturday, October 7, 2023, when 6,000 Palestinian members of Hamas attacked Israel, crossing the border separating the Gaza Strip from Israel and spreading death and destruction. At the same time, more than 4,000 rockets were fired at Israel from Gaza and elsewhere. Terrorists murdered more than 1,000 civilians in 21 Israeli communities and took more than 250 hostages in Gaza’s underground tunnels. 101 hostages remain detained in Gaza.
Israel responded to the attack it received. This war, which has lasted almost a year, has many thousands of victims on all sides and has caused great destruction and much pain. The decision to end the war is also in the hands of those who started it. Among other things, with the immediate return of the hostages to Israel.
After a year of Hezbollah rocket attacks against Israel from the territory of southern Lebanon, Israel responded. With the aim of restoring security in northern Israel and returning 100,000 Israeli refugees to their homes.
At the funeral I spoke with many Palestinian, Israeli and Greek friends who live these events closely and certainly have a better picture of the situation and events than many in Greece. In fact, they have a lot to say to those who chose to demonstrate in favor of the Palestinians in Athens, on the same day as the funeral, Saturday, October 5th, at 2 pm. I prefer not to convey the mixed feelings of pain, insult and anger they expressed, out of respect for the Karousis family’s grief.
I will just write that “Jonas was an ambassador for peace,” as his parents said, and let his unjust loss remind us how precious life is and how our goal should be to end all wars and mourning. Everywhere.
*Ilias Messinas is an architect, urban planner and writer. Creator of Ecoweek. Author of the books ‘A Sinagoga’, ‘A Sinagoga’ and ‘O Bom’ from the publications Infognomon, 2022, 2023 and (2024) respectively.