On Friday, the Israeli army announced that it had recovered the bodies of three hostages held in the Gaza Strip since October 7. Among the victims, Orion Hernandez-Radoux, a 32-year-old Franco-Mexican. He was attending the Tribe of Nova music festival in southern Israel when Hamas fighters attacked.
He was with his friend Shani Louk, a 22-year-old German-Israeli woman who later appeared in a social media video, lying face down, apparently unconscious and half-naked, in the back of a pickup truck in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army announced on May 17 that it had repatriated his body along with those of Chanan Yablonka, an Israeli, and Michel Nisenbaum, an Israeli-Brazilian.
Father of a daughter barely two years old
Orion was the father of a little girl barely two years old and worked in events, according to information from Parisian. Four days before heading to Tribe of Nova, he was in Greece, working on his own music festival. The thirty-year-old had spoken with his mother, Marie-Pascale Radoux, based in Tarn, by telephone. Since then, she hadn’t heard from him. According to her, her son’s presence at this event was not planned and was done at the last moment.
Even without news, his mother “remained hopeful”
Despite the lack of information for seven months, she “remained hopeful” that he was still alive. After Hamas fighters attacked the festival grounds where they killed around 1,140 people, Orion was kidnapped and taken to Gaza by the attackers. Friends of the young man then received a call from Hamas, “to say that he was well, that we don’t worry, that he was with them and that they would not mistreat him.”
Questioned last January, Marie-Pascale Radoux asked “a ceasefire” from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and “for Hamas to take care of [son] son, because he had physical weaknesses.” Contacted by The Parisian after the Israeli army’s announcement this Friday, those close to Orion say they are “in shock”.
One of the last three French hostages in Gaza
Orion Hernández-Radoux is the 43rd French victim of the assault by the Palestinian Islamist movement on October 7 in Israel, which resulted in the death of more than 1,170 people. The 32-year-old man was one of the last three French hostages still in captivity in the Gaza Strip. Two fathers remain in the hands of Hamas: Ohad Yahalomi, 49 years old, and Ofer Kalderon, 53 years old. Their children, Eitan Yahalomi, Erez Kalderon and Sahar Kalderon, were all released on November 27, during the first truce signed between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement.
“I learned with immense sadness of the death of our compatriot Orion Hernández-Radoux, hostage of Hamas since October 7. I think of his family and those close to him. We are at their side. France remains more than ever committed to the release of all the hostages,” Emmanuel Macron wrote on X.