At least 260 people died in the Hamas terrorist attack on the music festival. The terrorists also captured the celebrating young people. Little is known about their fate.
Elsa Osipova,
Marja Väänänen,
Eva Sarlin
The extreme organization Hamas committed an extraordinary brutality near the Gaza border terrorist attack for the Tribe of Nova festival on Saturday.
More than 1,500 young people had gathered to celebrate at an electronic music festival in the desert near the town of Ofakim, when dozens of terrorists appeared on the scene and opened fire on them.
An estimated 260 young revelers died trying to escape.
According to the Israeli Ynet media, the terrorists also took hostages from the festival.
Videos uploaded to social media show people fleeing across the desert for their lives.
The Israeli news media Ynet started collecting a list of missing persons over the weekend. According to Ynet, it has received clashes, the senders of which tell about their relatives who have gone missing at festivals.
You can get here To Ynet’s storywhich has pictures of dozens of festival guests who lost their lives or went missing.
Eyewitnesses tell of nightmarish events
Witnesses described the Hamas attack as nightmarish.
Dozens of armed Hamas fighters arrived at the festival area in vans and trucks.
Many said they had heard shots and that he witnessed Hamas fire. According to eyewitnesses, Hamas fighters were shooting at civilians facing and looking for those hidden in the desert to kill.
One of the party’s eyewitnesses told about rockets flying across the sky just before the attack. According to an eyewitness, the party guests first mistook the Hamas fire for a musical performance.
Hamas has also kidnapped people elsewhere in Israel in recent days. According to the Israeli government, Hamas has taken more than a hundred Israeli civilians and soldiers hostage during the latest attack. According to the Ynet news media, at least 300 people have been reported missing.
The terrorist organization has published videos of its hostages on Telegram. The videos have also spread to other social media.
The videos show how Hamas transports its terrified-looking prisoners, among other things, on the back of a motorcycle. Some scream in panic.
What is known about the hostages?
Middle East professor at the University of Helsinki Hannu Juusola so far, little is known about the fate of the hostages taken by Hamas.
It is known that Hamas has taken civilians hostage.
The ones that spread on social media from videos it can be concluded that children have also been taken hostage. The authenticity of the videos could not be confirmed.
– We know that kidnapped persons have been spectacularly transported, but on a large scale we know almost nothing about kidnappings. For example, we don’t know what kind of conditions the hostages are kept in, says Juusola.
Israel has been trying to get Egypt to act for the release of the hostages.
According to Juusola, the videos released by the terrorists are exceptional, as the organization usually tries to keep the conditions of the kidnapped a secret.
He describes Hamas’ weekend attack as special anyway.
– It was a completely new kind of operation in terms of scale.
Juusola compares the Hamas attack to the attacks of the terrorist organization ISIS.
The extremist organization Isis is particularly known for its attacks on civilians. Hamas, on the other hand, has not usually targeted civilians with the exception of suicide bombings, the expert states.
According to Juusola, it is likely that the purpose of the videos spread on social media is to present the success of the operation to their own group.
– They are like signs of victory. These videos show Israel that hostages are a commodity, Juusola reflects.
According to Juusola, it is likely that Hamas will try to use the hostages later in the negotiation situation with Israel.
In the past, Hamas has mostly taken Israeli soldiers as hostages.