“My daughter called me and said, ‘Daddy, we’re at war.’ “It was the last time I spoke to her”: the despair of the relatives of missing Latin Americans in Israel

They are desperate. Relatives of Latin Americans who went missing on Saturday during the Palestinian militant group Hamas’ attack on Israel are scrambling to find their loved ones.

So far, they do not appear in hospitals or on the lists of the deceased.

With hundreds dead and thousands injured as a result of Hamas’ attack and Israel’s response, the Palestinian militant group claims it has more than a hundred hostages in its possession.

As the hours pass and the Israeli counter-offensive in Gaza grows, Hamas’s armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, announced this Monday that “it will begin executing a captured Israeli civilian for every new bomb attack Israel carries out on citizens’ homes without prior notice.” warning”.

According to information provided by the Argentine government, more than a dozen civilians are missing and at least seven have been killed.

The governments of Mexico, Brazil, Peru and Chile also reported missing citizens who were in Israel when the attack took place, the most violent episode in the region in the past fifty years.

Hundreds of people around the world live in fear for hours as they try to find their relatives.

One of them is the Argentinian Itzik Horn, whose sons, Lair and Eitan, have not been located since Saturday.

Horn believes his children have been taken hostage by Hamas militants.

“They entered house by house in the kibbutz (farming community) where my eldest son lives. Those who could be taken were taken and those who could not were killed,” he told BBC Mundo from the town of Sderot, a kilometer from the Gaza border.

His youngest son was visiting Lair’s home when the surprise attack occurred. Since they didn’t answer the phone and no one in the community knew where they were, their father started searching.

“My children don’t show up. They are not in the hospitals, they are not on the death list. “I think they were kidnapped.”

There were also no indications of violence in the home. “There’s no blood on the floor or anything,” a sign that confirms his belief that they are hostages.

“I am willing to be called by Hamas to tell me that they have my children. “I want to know if they’re still alive.”

“Daddy, daddy, we are at war”

Nearly 260 bodies were found at an electronic party site near the Gaza border.

A Colombian couple was present at that party and is still missing. These are Ivonne Rubio (26) and Antonio Macías (29). Ivonne’s father, Julio Rubio, said the family is “heartbroken.”

“My daughter called me and said, ‘Daddy, daddy, we are at war. I’m going to run and find a bunker.’ That was “The last time I spoke to her.”

“You don’t know what it’s like to live with the uncertainty of not knowing where your daughter is,” he said in an interview with BBC Mundo from Jerusalem.

“They were young people at a party, they had nothing to do with it, they had no reason to be viciously attacked in that way. “They shot everyone, left hundreds of bodies behind and took many hostage,” he added.

Another young man who was with the couple was found in a hospital, Rubio said, but so far he has not been able to give coherent testimony because he is deeply traumatized.

‘There are friends of my daughters who are dead’

One of the cities shocked by the Hamas attack was Ashkelon, located just 20 kilometers from the barrier separating Israel from the Gaza Strip, where part of the Latin American community lives.

Live there Ana Hararia Colombian who moved to Israel more than thirty years ago and works in a company dedicated to designing objects to help people with physical disabilities.

Harari spoke by phone to BBC Mundo from Ashkelon about how the attack happened. Two days later, he says, he still doesn’t know what’s happening on the streets of his city.

“We don’t know yet whether there are terrorists on the streets, We don’t know what level of control the government has over the area. We keep hearing explosions and the sirens warning us about the missiles,” he said as some explosions could be heard in the background.

“There are friends of my daughters who are dead and missing. Fellow soldiers of my son, who has just completed his military service, are also dead. “It is a horror what we are experiencing.”

“We don’t know if they will enter our homes and kill us”

A year ago, Harari, born in the Colombian municipality of Garzón, decided to move to Ashkelon, a city of 132,000 inhabitants located on the Israeli coast in the Mediterranean Sea.

“Because we are so close to Gaza, we are the first city where the rockets arrive when Hamas attacks,” he said.

And this Saturday seemed like another of the attacks that had taken place in recent years. However, he soon realized that something was wrong.

“The attack lasted much longer. And we started hearing that there were terrorist infiltrations over land. And over the water, next to the bombings.”

Harari says he soon heard rockets flying over his house. And then they started beating near his house.

“They destroyed my car, the neighbor’s car… The houses of other people I know who live in the area suffered serious damage,” he said.

Without a vehicle he could not escape, so he had to remain in his shelter for two days without water or supplies.

“What we are experiencing is a horror. We don’t know if they will enter our homes and kill us. like they did in other places,” he said.

Another resident of the Strip is Jessica Sharon, an Argentinian national living in the city of Beit Oved.

Sharon settled in Israel twenty years ago and became a visual artist and painting teacher.

He is trying to get his 11-year-old son out of the country, but the situation is critical.

“We hear that attacks are taking place in the north. We are trapped here and I just want to leave (the country) because the situation is going to get worse,” he ventured. (JO)