Rachel Frenkel’s two-minute speech before the UN Human Rights Council on June 24 concisely summed up a horrifying personal tragedy. The mother of kidnapped Naftali Frenkel made good use of the short time allotted to her, with the mothers of the two other kidnapped teens — Gilad Shaer’s mother Bat-Galim and Eyal Yifrah’s mother Iris — sitting behind her. The sight of the three women together only intensified the already highly charged moment. But Frenkel’s attempt to evoke sympathy from her audience only served to emphasize the cynical and hostile winds blowing toward them in the hall.

She told them about the boys’ hobbies: “Naftali is 16. He loves to play guitar and basketball. He’s a good student and a good boy — a combination of serious and fun. Eyal loves to play sports and cook. Gilad is an amateur pastry chef and loves movies.”

She spoke of the last text message she received from her son and stressed that the youths were kidnapped on their way home from school. Choking with emotion, she shared the families’ overwhelming desire to have them “back in our homes, in their beds," saying, "We just want to hug them again.” But she failed in her effort to touch the representatives of different countries seated in the Geneva hall, and through them to reach the world public opinion.

“The world is indifferent. It does not heed our cries, and that’s why we came — to make our pleas heard,” said Bat-Galim Shaer in her disappointed summation of the UN assembly's treatment of the three mothers, whose world had been turned upside down 10 days earlier.