In France and Germany, anguish is growing over the fate of several of their citizens who live in Israel and who have not been heard from since Saturday. The French Government has confirmed the death of two French citizens, although it has not given details about their identity or the circumstances of their deaths. He has also confirmed that there are 14 missing citizens, whose situation “is very disturbing.” The number “is likely to evolve,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement, in which it said that, according to the information they have, the kidnapping of some of them is “very likely,” including a minor. twelve years.
“Since the start of the terrorist attacks against Israel last Saturday, the crisis cell in Paris, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem has been in contact with several dozen compatriots seeking, in particular, to locate their relatives, residents or those passing through. by Israel. Since then, several French people have been rescued by Israeli security forces and are safe,” Foreign Affairs said.
There is still a lot of confusion, their whereabouts are unknown, but it is not known if they have died or been taken hostage by Hamas. This Monday Meyer Habib, a deputy who represents his compatriots residing in Israel in the French Parliament, had announced the disappearance of seven other Frenchmen, including a 26-year-old young man, originally from Bordeaux (southwest of France), who has been taken hostage while participating in the music festival near the Gaza border where at least 250 people have died.
“I just spoke with his father (…) He just confirmed to me, as we feared, that Hamas took Avidan hostage,” the parliamentarian wrote on the social network X (ex-Twitter), according to the AFP agency.
According to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, there are more than a hundred Israelis kidnapped by Hamas in Gaza. “It is not known who they are, the list is not known, not even if they are alive or dead,” Julien Bahloul, a French-Israeli citizen and expert on Israeli society, told the BFM network. “It is a massacre similar to our November 13th,” he said, referring to the Islamist attacks in Paris in 2015 that left more than 130 dead.
The French Foreign Minister confirmed on Sunday the death of a French woman and this Monday afternoon that of another citizen. A crisis cell has been opened to assist nationals living in the country. “Our teams are fully mobilized to clarify the situation of several citizens who have not been able to be located, and we are in constant contact with their families and the Israeli authorities,” said the Quai D’Orsay.
There are 62,000 French or Franco-Israeli citizens registered in Israel and another 25,000 in Jerusalem, according to Efe data. The French authorities have asked them to respect the instructions of “extreme surveillance” of their embassy and consular services.
Among the hundred people kidnapped by Hamas in the worst attack on Israel in recent decades there are several German citizens. One of them is Shani Louk, a 22-year-old girl who attended the aforementioned music festival, where the Hamas militias spread terror and shed blood. The last trace of the young woman is a transaction she made with her credit card in Gaza. Yoni Asher’s family would also have been forcibly taken there.
Asher recognized his wife and two children, ages three and five, in one of the Hamas hostage videos. The family was visiting her grandmother at a kibbutz near the Gaza Strip when Hamas launched its attack. “I recognized my wife immediately. I have no doubt. They have taken them all, the children and the grandmother,” Asher denounced. All of them have German nationality.
Shani Louk has also not responded to calls from her relatives since Saturday, but as in the case of Asher’s family, she was seen in one of the videos spread on social networks. She is seen lying on top of a truck and several men trampling on her apparently lifeless body. One of them man pulls her hair, another of hers spits on his bleeding head from outside her. The men shout “Allahu Akbar” (“Allah is great”). Then the jeep speeds away.
Shani Louk has never lived in Germany, but has visited her grandparents in Ravensburg in the state of Baden-Württemberg several times. Her mother, a Catholic who later converted to Judaism, emigrated to Israel. Her mother said she was from Ravensburg and that she had immigrated to Israel 30 years ago. Her husband is Israeli. The family had four children, and the kidnapped girl was the second. The family lives about 80 kilometers from the Gaza Strip.
During Saturday’s large-scale Hamas attack on Israel, Shani Louk was at the music festival with friends. According to her mother, as soon as the first rockets flew she called her and she responded that they would look for shelter. After that, her family heard nothing more about her, except for the trace left by her credit card in Gaza. Her mother, Ricarda Louk, therefore trusts that she is still alive.
The family of Jake Marlowe, a 26-year-old British man, harbors the same hope. Marlowe moved to Israel from Britain two years ago and was working security at the rave party that Hamas turned into an orgy of violence.
On the other hand, among the victims of the Hamas incursion into Israel since Saturday is also Berliner Carolin Bohl, 22, although there is no official confirmation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The young woman’s sister, Anja Pasquesi, announced her sister’s death on Instagram this Monday. “Today we learned from a friend of Carolin’s at Kibbutz Nir Oz in Israel – on the border with the Gaza Strip – that she and her boyfriend Danny died yesterday in a terrorist attack. We are devastated and working to come to terms with this unimaginable tragedy. We are grateful deeply to everyone who has gone to so much trouble today to help find her and provide information and contacts,” Pasqueri wrote on Instagram.