TRIŠIĆ-BABIĆ ON THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF TERRORIST ATTACK ON ISRAEL: FRIENDS, WE STAND WITH YOU!

BANJA LUKA, OCTOBER 7 /SRNA/ - Republika Srpska stands with Israel not only in remembering October 7, but also in defending the fundamental right of the Jewish people to live freely, safely, and in their own homeland, Ana Trišić-Babić, acting director for international cooperation of Republika Srpska, said.

"Throughout history, the Serbian and Jewish peoples have known times when a person did not have to do anything to be targeted for persecution. Their name and origin were enough. Under the same fascist and Nazi system of terror during World War II, both Serbs and Jews were killed," Trišić-Babić said.

She pointed out that the Serbs' attitude toward the suffering of the Jewish people does not stem from political calculation, but is rooted in historical experience and a shared existential concern.

"To the State of Israel and the Jewish people, we say something that carries deep meaning in Republika Srpska. When someone shows a people that they want to see them live in fear, remain powerless or disappear, that people's right to protect themselves is not subject to anyone else's permission," Trišić-Babić said.

SRNA, the Media System of Republika Srpska, is publishing Ana Trišić Babić's article in full:

Three years after Hamas' terrorist attack on Israel, the memory of the victims of October 7 remains a reminder of every people's right to live freely and safely.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas showed what its ideology means when given the opportunity to put it into practice. On October 7, 2023, Hamas showed what its vision of freedom looks like.

More than 1,200 people were killed in Israel, most of them civilians. A total of 251 people were abducted and taken to Gaza. People were killed on the road, in their homes, at parties and in the midst of ordinary life. They were not targeted because they posed a military threat. They were targeted because they were Israelis and Jews.

Three years later, it is precisely this fact that must be the starting point for any serious remembrance of October 7.

October 7 was a crime of the worst kind. It was a terrorist attack deliberately directed against civilians, with the intention of turning murder, abduction, and fear into a message to an entire people. Hamas sought to show that, for Jews, neither their own homes, their own state, nor everyday life could be safe enough.

The Jewish people were not facing such a message for the first time.

In this regard, Republika Srpska understands something that cannot be learned from diplomatic statements. Throughout history, the Serbian and Jewish peoples have known times when a person did not have to do anything to be singled out for persecution. Their name and origin were enough. Under the same fascist and Nazi system of terror during the Second World War, both Serbs and Jews were killed. Jasenovac is a place where the fates of our two peoples lie side by side and, as such, it remains one of the most horrifying examples of that policy that led to the near destruction of the Jewish community in Banjaluka by the Ustasha occupiers

That is why the Serb people's attitude toward the suffering of the Jewish people is not rooted in political calculations. At its core lie historical experience and a matter of destiny.

There is also the experience of a much more recent past. During the wars of the 1990s, the Serbian people experienced firsthand what radical Islamism can do when it reduces a person to their faith and nationality, and gives violence the appearance of a higher justification. That is why, in Republika Srpska, we do not view Hamas’s methods - the massacre of civilians, abductions, rape, hostage-taking, humiliation, and terror as a political instrument - as something belonging to a distant time and an incomprehensible world.

The histories are not the same. But peoples who have survived attempts to erase them know how to recognize the moment when hatred ceases to be mere words and becomes a method.

This third anniversary also carries special significance. For the first time since October 7, Israel is marking the anniversary without a single hostage from that attack still being held in Gaza. In January this year, after 843 days, the remains of Ran Gvili, the last abductee whose remains were still in Gaza, were returned. With the return of his remains, Israel also recovered the last of the 251 people whom Hamas abducted on October 7. All living hostages and the remains of those killed whom Hamas took to Gaza were once again on Israeli soil.

This is not merely the conclusion of an operation. It is a reaffirmation of one of the most serious obligations a state has toward its people. A serious state does not stop searching for one of its own simply because time has passed. It does not accept that a kidnapped person becomes a number, that a missing person becomes a footnote, or that the passage of years erases the debt owed to someone violently torn from their life. In Republika Srpska, such a message carries particular weight, because our people, too, know what it means to wait for news of the missing and to live with the obligation that no one be consigned to oblivion.

That is why, for Republika Srpska, the closing of the list of hostages also carried particular significance. Behind that list lay one of the darkest ideas underpinning terrorism: that a human being can be torn from their own life and turned into an instrument of someone else’s political will.

Remembering October 7 is therefore not a matter of protocol.

Remembrance is a responsibility toward the dead, but also an obligation of the living not to allow the passage of time to alter the moral nature of what happened. Civilization rests not only on laws and institutions. It also rests on the ability, when necessary, to distinguish without relativization between the victim and their killer, and between a crime and its justification. Peace rests on that same ability. Peace is not a natural state that we achieve once and then possess forever. It exists as long as societies are willing to preserve it and states are willing to protect their people when someone violently denies them the right to live.

Today, we respectfully remember the people whom Hamas killed on October 7, 2023, and all those whose lives were violently cut short or forever changed that day.

And to the State of Israel and the Jewish people, we say something that carries profound meaning in Republika Srpska: When someone shows a people that they want them to live in fear, helplessness, or face their own disappearance, that people's right to defend themselves is not subject to anyone else's permission.

Friends, we stand with you! Not only in remembering October 7, but in defending your people's fundamental right to live freely, safely, and on their own land.