‘My heart broke’: Families in dark over fate of loved ones held by terrorists in Gaza
Relatives of abducted German, Thai and Colombian nationals desperately searching for news; mother of woman critically hurt urges Berlin to act
PARIS — The horrific wait for the families of the over 100 people abducted in Hamas’s murderous onslaught in Israel has been marked by silence, uncertainty and pain.
These are the voices of the families waiting and hoping:
‘Every minute critical’
Ricarda Louk has been living a nightmare since she recognized her 22-year-old daughter Shani in a video, stripped and battered, in the back of a truck surrounded by Hamas terrorists.
In a video on broadcaster ARD Tuesday, the mother said she had received new information that her daughter — a dual Israeli-German national — was alive but had a severe head injury and was in critical condition.
Ricarda Louk first raised the alarm about her daughter over the weekend after she recognised her in videos circulating online, due to her tattoos and dyed hair.
The videos showed a half-naked woman lying seemingly unconscious face down in the back of a pick-up truck in Gaza filled with armed men.
“Every minute is critical, and we are asking the German government to act quickly,” she said.
Her daughter was attending a music festival in southern Israel near the Gaza Strip when Hamas terrorists set upon the event and began killing and capturing partygoers.
At least 260 people from the event were murdered.
‘I would hug him’
Kanyarat Suriyasri said she was heartbroken when she found out her husband, who had traveled from Thailand to Israel to support his family, had been taken hostage by Hamas.
“My heart broke,” she told AFP from Si Saket province in eastern Thailand. “I am waiting to hear some good news.”
Her husband, 40-year-old Owat Suriyasri, moved to Israel in 2021 for improved wages, hoping to build a better house for his wife and two children.
“We have a lot of debts, and working abroad pays better than in Thailand,” she said.
If she could see him now, Suriyasri said, “I would hug him.”
Hamas killed 18 Thai nationals in its offensive against Israel, a heavy toll for the Southeast Asian country that has steered clear of major international conflicts.
We left Colombia ‘to find peace’
Julio Rubio moved to Israel in the 1990s to escape the violence caused by drug cartels in Colombia. Now he fears his 26-year-old daughter has been taken hostage by Hamas.
“Dad, a war has started!” Rubio’s daughter Ivonne told him over the phone from the music festival Hamas massacred.
“I didn’t understand everything she was saying on the phone,” Rubio told Colombia’s Caracol Radio on Monday.
He said his daughter told him she was going to try to find shelter.
“I spoke to her for 50 seconds, and I haven’t heard from her since,” he said.
Ivonne is the mother of a young boy, and partner to Antonio Mesias Montano, also missing, and also a parent.
Rubio and his family moved to Israel 32 years ago to flee the violence in Colombia, he said.
“We came here looking for some peace, and now look at what we’ve found,” he lamented.
Palestinian terrorists rampaged through the south of Israel on Saturday morning, killing some 1,200 people, the vast majority of them civilians, and taking at least 100 captives to Gaza. Some 3,000 were injured.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says 1,100 in the Palestinian enclave have been killed in retaliatory Israeli strikes. Israel says it is targeting terrorist infrastructure and all areas where Hamas operates or hides. Jerusalem has also said Israeli forces have killed some 1,500 Hamas terrorists who infiltrated into its territory since Saturday.