Families Cry Out After Israeli Rave Attack: ‘Nobody is Helping Us’

Charisma Madarang
·4 min read
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An outdoor music festival near the Gaza-Israel border turned into a battlefield as militants opened fire on hundreds of attendees. Around 260 bodies were found at the site, according to Israeli rescue service Zaka.

And now, families are begging for help to find their missing loved ones.

“We didn’t even have any place to hide because we were at [an] open space,” Tal Gibly, who survived the attack, told CNN. The attack, timed to the 50th anniversary of the onset of the Yom Kippur War, was one of multiple locations targeted on Saturday morning in areas throughout Israel, with Gaza militants firing thousands of rockets into the country as well as engaging in a ground attack.

Social media feeds were flooded with videos of multiple people killed and others being kidnapped as attendees attempted to flee. Relatives of those missing have said they felt abandoned by the government and that they have received little to no help.

Ora Kuperstein, who is searching for her nephew, 21-year-old Bar, told Israeli Channel 12 news that his parents have not received any information from authorities. Bar was working at the festival when he was kidnapped and taken to Gaza. “Nobody has told us anything. Nobody is helping us. It’s chaos,” she said. “His parents know nothing. He got there on Friday evening. From the videos we’ve seen he was next to the guards, who were the first to get shot.”

She added, “He had no weapon, they took him with other young people.”

Parents lined up at the missing person’s center that was set up near Ben Gurion Airport on Saturday evening, where the remains of those killed were taken for identification. Relatives also searched for missing family members at hospitals.

Ricarda Louk — the mother of Shani Louk, a 30-year-old German tattoo artist whose body was seen on video being paraded through the streets in the back of a pick-up truck — asked for help finding her daughter in a video published by German newspaper Bild.

“This morning my daughter, Shani Nicole Louk, a German citizen, was kidnapped with a group of tourists in southern Israel by Palestinian Hamas,” said Ricarda. “We were sent a video in which I could clearly see our daughter unconscious in the car with the Palestinians and them driving around the Gaza Strip. I ask you to send us any help or any news. Thank you very much.”

In a separate, unverified video that went viral Saturday, Hamas militants appeared to kidnap a young couple identified as Noa Argamani and Avinatan Or, per CNN. In the clip, Argamani is driven away on the back of a motorcycle as Or walks with his hands behind his back.

“It’s very difficult when you see someone that is so close to you and you know so much being treated like this,” Amir Moadi, a roommate of Argamani, told CNN.

Many family members received text messages from loved ones who attended the event before they went missing. Hersh Golberg-Polin, a 23-year-old student, texted his mother and father “I love you, I’m sorry” on Saturday. Born in Berkeley, California, Hersh and his family moved to Jerusalem when he was seven years old. His father, Jonathan Polin, told the Jerusalem Post: “We just want him home and safe. We love you. Come home to us.”

A man, who told Channel 12 his name was Nissim, said that the last message he received from his brother who was at the festival was, “Nissim, help us. They shot us. I am bleeding.”

“Where is the government? Why is nobody helping us find them?” he shouted.

According to the most recent numbers, Israeli officials confirmed to CBS News that at 600 Israeli civilians and members of the military have died and 1,800 wounded since rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel by Hamas militants.

“We are at war — not in an operation, not in rounds — at war,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday. I am initiating an extensive mobilization of the reserves to fight back on a scale and intensity that the enemy has so far not experienced. The enemy will pay an unprecedented price.”

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