Switzerland Today
Dear Swiss Abroad,
“We realised that it was much more than a rocket attack,” said Martin Sessler, a Swiss-born pensioner who experienced Hamas’s raid on Saturday, which killed some 700 people, from his kibbutz bunker not far from the Gaza Strip. Here is more on that and other news and stories from Switzerland on Monday.
In the news: Invasive moths, travel advice for trips to Israel, and migrating bird numbers.
- The presence of the palm borer moth has been confirmed in Ticino, southern Switzerland. The pest, which originated in South America and is already present in several regions of southern Europe, poses a serious threat to many species of palm tree.
- The Swiss foreign ministry currently advises against all travel to Israel that is not of an urgent nature, following the attack by Hamas on Saturday. The ministry has published advice for the 28,000 Swiss who live in Israel and anyone who is visiting.
- Some 143,470 birds were counted migrating through Switzerland at the weekend. A particularly large number of starlings were sighted, but there were also rarities such as ospreys and red-throated pipits. Nevertheless, migratory bird populations in Europe and especially in Switzerland continue to decline.
Martin Sessler lives in the kibbutz of Magen, a few kilometres from the border with the Gaza Strip. On Sunday evening the Swiss-Israeli dual national told Swiss public television, RTS, how he experienced Saturday morning’s attack by Hamas.
“It started very early, at around 6am. We heard gunfire, then the alarm in our kibbutz warning of a rocket attack. We went into our bunker and eventually realised that it was much more than a rocket attack. We heard that terrorists had crossed the border. We were very surprised,” he told RTS’s Forum programmeExternal link.
On Saturday fighters from Islamist group Hamas killed 700 Israelis and abducted dozens in the deadliest such incursion in decades. Hundreds of Palestinians were killed in retaliatory strikes on Gaza (pictured).
“We found out later that there had been a real battle between our civilian unit that protects the kibbutz and the terrorists who had come from the Gaza Strip,” said the 76-year-old from Zurich, who says he was most afraid for his children and grandchildren who live in the region.
Sessler, a former lecturer at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, told Forum that the attackers were repelled and that no residents were taken hostage, unlike in neighbouring villages. “There was also a youth festival a few kilometres north of us. It was attacked and I imagine there are hundreds of dead and hostages.”
He said the situation in his village had calmed down to a certain extent, particularly since the army arrived nine hours after the assault began. “From time to time we’re warned that there may still be Hamas fighters in the area, that they may have gone into hiding. We have to go back into our bunker for a few hours, until we get a message telling us we can come out.”
He explained how the army then asked them to leave their homes, like the other villages in the region – “I imagine so they can carry out a military operation against the Gaza Strip. We’ll have to evacuate by this evening and find a room in a hotel near the Dead Sea.”
Sessler blames the Israeli government for not anticipating the attack. “What happened was a catastrophe. We know when an Iranian official has his coffee in Tehran, but we don’t know that cars are leaving the Gaza Strip with hundreds of soldiers. I’d really like to see the government take responsibility. We’re talking about hundreds of deaths, but I think there are thousands,” he said.
Today my colleague Simon Bradley looked at the revived debate in Switzerland about whether the Palestinian militant group Hamas should be declared a terrorist organisation.
A new people’s initiative argues that people should vote where they live. Political scientist Claude Longchamp reckons that if this is taken to its logical conclusion, it would have massive consequences for the voting rights of the Swiss Abroad.
In the latest article in our series on Swiss Abroad views, Longchamp turns his attention to a popular initiative for a modern citizenship law. The initiators demands a basic right to naturalisation in Switzerland for everyone who lives here.
This refers to foreigners who have been legally resident in Switzerland for five years, have not been sentenced to a long-term prison term, do not endanger the internal and external security of Switzerland, and have a basic knowledge of a national language.
“That everyone should have political rights only in one country is not found in the text of the initiative,” Longchamp says. “But apparently it is part of the arguments of the left-green-liberal supporters of the initiative. If taken to its logical conclusion, however, this argument would mean the end of voting rights for the Swiss Abroad in their old home country.”
The worldwide trend is to reduce privileges concerning the right to vote rather than to establish them anew, he says. “In principle, this speaks in favour of the initiative, but not against the right to vote and to stand for election for the Swiss Abroad. A combination of both would not increase the chances of the initiative, but rather lower them.”
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