The Argentine grandmother who gave her name to Messi and was saved from Hamas kidnapping

A saving invocation. That of Lionel Messi’s name as a verbal talisman to avoid the certain threat of a terrorist organization that tortured, killed and kidnapped hundreds of civilians in Israel on 7 October.

The protagonist of the story is Ester Cunio, 90 year old Argentine woman who that day was in his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of the many attacked by Hamas in its violent incursion into Israeli territory.

When two members of the Palestinian organization entered her house armed, asking for the remaining members of her family, Ester encountered the language barrier and some danger to her life.

“Don’t talk to me, because I don’t know your language. Arabic. And I speak Hebrew badly. I speak in Argentine, in Spanish,” he told them.

“‘And what is Argentina?’, he replies. Then I tell him: do you watch football? Then he says to me ‘yes, football. I like it'”, the dialogue continued.

“Then I tell him: I come from where Messi comes from. And he replies ‘Messi? I like Messi’. And he grabbed my arm, gave me the revolver, the rifle, put his hand on me and they took a picture of us,” the woman said.

And without asking any further questions the terrorists left.