Foreign nationals among murdered, abducted and missing in brutal Hamas assault

Foreign nationals from various countries were among those killed, abducted, and missing after Hamas’s surprise multipronged assault on Israel Saturday.

Israel has confirmed the attackers took soldiers and civilians hostage, but numbers and nationalities have not been confirmed. Officials say over 100 were taken. Hamas claims the number stands at some 130.

Americans are among the hostages that Hamas took as it attacked Israel, the Israeli ambassador to the United States said Sunday, without specifying numbers.

The diplomat, Michael Herzog, was asked on CBS News if there were Americans among the soldiers and civilians that the Palestinian terror group abducted in southern Israel.

“I understand there are, but I don’t have details,” he said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN’s “State of the Union” that “we have reports that several Americans were killed.”

“We are working overtime to verify that,” Blinken continued. “There are reports of missing Americans.”

Earlier in the day, the US Embassy refused to provide details about dead or missing citizens.

The mother of German-Israeli woman Shani Louk, 23, who attended a desert party near Kibbutz Re’im, appealed for help finding her after identifying Louk in a video showing terrorists in Gaza. At least 260 revelers were massacred by terrorists at the event. Videos from the party showed others being taken hostage by Hamas.

Louk, a tourist who lives in Germany and has Israeli citizenship, was filmed in widely disseminated video lying face down in the back of a pickup truck in a state of undress. One man is pulling her hair, while another puts his leg on her buttocks and legs, which appear to be lying in an unnatural angle. It is not clear whether she is alive in the video.

The Foreign Ministry of Thailand said 11 of its nationals were taken hostage during the fighting and presumably brought to Gaza.

“They are innocent and have nothing to do with any conflict,” Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said, according to the Bangkok Post.

There are some 5,000 Thais in areas of southern Israel currently under a war footing, according to Bangkok. Most are there as farmhands in agricultural communities, some of which came under attack in Saturday’s initial onslaught. Another two Thai nationals were confirmed killed.

Thawatchai and Thongkhoon Onkeaw said a picture appearing to show Thai workers being held by Hamas gunmen includes their son, Natthaporn Onkeaw, 26, the Post reported.

The picture, distributed on the Telegram messaging app, showed at least five men sitting in the dirt with their hands behind their backs in what appeared to be a bunker, as masked gunmen trained rifles on them.

British national Nathanel Young, 20, was killed while serving in the Israel Defense Forces, his sister, Gaby Shalev, said on Facebook. His death was later confirmed by the Israeli embassy in London.

BREAKING: A British man who was serving in the Israeli army has been killed in an attack by Hamas militants https://t.co/mPdNhdUoxH

— Sky News (@SkyNews) October 8, 2023

British photographer Danny Darlington, who lived in Berlin, and his German girlfriend, Carolin Bohl, have not been heard from after they hid out in a bunker at Kibbutz Nir Oz, according to Sam Pasquesi, who is Bohl’s brother-in-law.

Pasquesi said his family learned Sunday from a man working at the kibbutz that the bodies of the two had been identified.

The British Embassy also confirmed to Sky News that British-Israeli Jake Marlow was missing in the area after having been at the party near Re’im. According to reports, Marlow, who moved to Israel two years ago, was working security and has not been heard from since 8:45 a.m. Saturday morning.

Israeli Ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely told Sky News that she believed a British citizen had been abducted, but the Israeli embassy later retracted the claim, the network reported.

A French citizen, a 20-year-old IDF soldier, was confirmed killed, according to a French diplomat. Several more French citizens are still missing, said the official.

Additionally, 10 citizens of Nepal were among those killed in the Hamas assault, the Himalayan republic’s embassy in Tel Aviv said in a statement.

“Ten Nepalis have tragically died, due to an attack by the Palestinian Hamas group, in a place called Kibbutz Alumim,” the statement read, adding that four were being treated in hospital, and one was missing.

The Nepalis were among a group of students studying in a year-long program at the Sedot Negev Agriculture Training Center in Netivot in the south. According to a press release from the Nepal Students’ Union, there are some 49 students from Nepal currently studying agriculture in Israel.

Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Manet confirmed the death of a Cambodian student in the attack.

The Gaza-based Hamas terror group launched an unprecedented assault on Israel on Saturday morning, firing thousands of rockets and sending gunmen into Israeli communities by land, sea, and air, killing at least 700 people and injuring over 2,300 by Sunday evening. The toll was expected to rise.

Nearly 48 hours after the coordinated assault began, Israeli security forces were still struggling to clear the last terrorist cells entrenched within devastated communities.