Israel rocket attack: Death of Soumya Santhosh gets low key response from top Kerala netas

On Tuesday, Soumya Santhosh, a caretaker for an Israeli family was hurriedly packing her belongings. Since Monday morning, the southern coastal city of Ashkelon where she has been working since 2017 has been witnessing a barrage of rockets launched by the militant group Hamas. She quickly made a video call to her relatives back at the Hilly district of Idukki in Kerala. 

"We are asked to pack our bags soon. I am scared," she had told her sister earlier through the video call. Later, she connected with her husband Santosh and that call, unfortunately, was her last. "The call went out in lightning-quick speed. I immediately called another relative in Israel and that's when we realised our worst fear has come true," reported Santosh to local media. 

The 30-year-old Soumya was killed in the rocket that struck their home. A member of the Israeli family was also reported to have been killed along with Soumya. 

But back home in Kerala, her death took a long time to be met with condolences by the top politicians. Neither interim Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan nor opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala seemed in any rush to make statements of consolation to her family or condemnation of a terror attack on the civilian population.

CM Vijayan paid tribute to Soumya Sathosh during his daily evening press conference. He said the state government is working closely with Israeli officials and the Centre to repatriate the body of Soumya. Without condemning the attack on the civilian population in the Israeli-Palestine conflict, Vijayan said, "I share the grief of family and friends of Soumya and pay my tribute."

Congress leader shares postcard terming Palestinian attack as a terrorist attack; deletes and apologises 

Young Congress leader Veena Nair, who stood as Congress MLA candidate in Vattiyoorkav, shared a social media postcard and later removed it. The card had mentioned that Soumya was a victim of a terrorist attack. After receiving flak from a section of people, Veena deleted the post and apologised. 

"I had posted a screenshot I received regarding the murder of a Malayalee woman in Israel without paying attention. It's not intentional. I'm sorry for the mistake I made," she wrote.

Meanwhile, Idukki MLA Roshy Augustine wrote in his Facebook post that he found out through his sources that the attack on civilians by Palestine is just a 'one-off incident'. 

CPIM Polit Bureau release supported the Palestinian cause 

Hours before the tragedy came to light the CPIM polit bureau released a statement supporting the Palestinians. "Strongly Denounce Israeli Attacks on Palestinians," the headlines read. The Left that came to power in the state with a large swing of minority votes to its side denounced Israeli attacks on Palestine on the Gaza Strip. It also accused the Israeli government of following apartheid policies and condemned the raids on Al-Aqsa mosque, calling it the 'third holiest shrine for Muslims'. The Polit Bureau also demanded the Government of India to support the people of Palestine. 

PC George attacks CM 

The former MLA from Poonjar who was defeated by the left in the recent assembly elections, however, stood his ground and attacked the chief minister for his long silence on the issue. George, who minces no words in calling out fundamentalism took to social media. In his Facebook post he called the chief minister a hypocrite and called it unfortunate that on International nurses Day, a caretaker who fell victim to a terror attack is not even being named by the state leadership. 

"Whom did you fear? Hamas or Palestine? or Hamas in Kerala?" PC George wrote in the Facebook post. He also called out the bizarre silence of cultural leaders in the state and accused them of being a stooge of AKG centre, the headquarters of CPIM in the state.