‘Shots from every direction’: Israeli partygoers recount moment Hamas gunmen attack dance festival

“WE STARTED TEXTING”

Noa Argamani and her boyfriend Avinatan Or were also at the party but did not make it home.

They are now identified among dozens of Israelis apparently held captive in Gaza after video circulated showing Noa being carried away on the back of a motorcycle, pleading and reaching out towards her boyfriend being marched alongside on foot.

As warning sirens sounded across southern and central Israel when the missiles started flying in the early hours of Saturday, people started trying to contact friends and relatives.

“We started texting everyone,” Amit Parpara, a friend, told Reuters. Other friends at the party managed to escape in their cars, he said, but at first, it was impossible to get in touch with Noa or Avinatan until he received a text himself.

“She texted me her live location and a message that says: ‘I hope someone can come save us,'” he said.

He said he had seen photos of the pair hiding in a hole, waiting for rescue.

Yaakov Argamani, Noa’s father, told Channel 12 television that he had seen the footage of his daughter being driven away on the motorbike and confirmed her identity.

“She was so terrified. I always protected her and in this moment I couldn’t.”

A British citizen who attended the party is also missing, Israel’s embassy in the United Kingdom said on Sunday.

Jake Marlowe, 26, went missing early on Saturday.

His mother, Lisa, told the Jewish News that he was providing security at a party and she last heard from her son via text message.

“He was doing security at this rave and called me at 4.30am to say all these rockets were flying over,” she said. “Then, at about 5.30am, he texted to say, ‘signal very bad, everything okay, will keep you updated I promise you’, and that he loves me.”

Tzipi Hotovely, the Israeli ambassador to the UK, earlier told Sky News that a British citizen was in Gaza, but she did not provide the name of the individual.

“I know that Israel is doing everything to make sure all the people being kept hostage at the moment in the hands of Hamas will be released,” she said.