Hamas declares bloodthirsty war on women in attack on Israel

Seizing female captives appears to have been prioritised by the rampaging Islamist militants. The unthinkable is now a living nightmare for Israelis.

In a still taken from video, a woman identified on social media as Noa Argamani is pictured being abducted my Palestinian militants in southern Israel.

The attack came out of the blue of a clear autumnal sky, catching the Israelis utterly by surprise.

All along their bristling border with Gaza and deep into the heartland of the Jewish state, communities that had been at ease in the sleepy quiet of a holiday weekend were engulfed by a hellscape of rocket strikes, gunfire and hostage-taking.

Israel’s vaunted intelligence apparatus had failed: the heavily surveilled network of fences and walls that was supposed to guard against incursion lay breached.

The unthinkable was now a living nightmare for Israelis as squads of Hamas fighters roamed the streets of a score of towns and villages in the country’s fortified south, killing or snatching people at will.

Images of bloodied, terrified Israeli women being dragged away cut deep. Seizing female captives appears to have been prioritised by the rampaging Islamist militants. Dozens of women, including active duty Israel Defence Forces personnel, number among the missing who are presumed to have been taken to Gaza to serve as human shields for Hamas or bargaining chips in potential prisoner swaps.

In one confronting video shared widely on social media, a young Israeli woman wearing military-style camo pants and T-shirt was seen to be hauled by her hair from a commandeered IDF vehicle.

Reportedly a captured soldier, she cut a forlorn figure, barefoot and drenched in blood, her wrists cabled-tied behind her back.

Her captors shouted “Allahu Akbar” before they bundled her into a rear seat and sped off. Her fate remains unknown.

A rave party near Kibbutz Re’im, close to the Gaza Strip 90 minutes’ drive from Jerusalem, was attacked from two directions by tightly co-ordinated teams of gunmen who fired indiscriminately into the revellers.

Hundreds fled for their lives into the desert. In the pandemonium, 25-year-old Noa Argamani was grabbed alongside her boyfriend, Avi Nathan.

The young woman was video­ed on the back of a motorcycle sandwiched between two burly Hamas fighters, pleading for her life. Arms outstretched, she screamed in Hebrew: “Don’t kill me. No, no, no.” Her fate, like that of Mr Nathan, is unknown.

Horrifyingly, the body of ­German-born tattoo artist Shani Louk, in her early 20s, was later paraded through the streets of Gaza City by the returning fighters. “We knew she was in the party,” her cousin Tom Weintraub Louk said, after the family recognised her distinctive tattoos and dreadlocked hair from an online video. “She didn’t answer.”

Shani Louk, a German national, is believed to have been killed by Palestinian militants during their large scale incursion into Israel. Picture: Instagram

Louk in an Instagram post.

Another 10-second video posted to Telegram showed at least five Israeli women, some with bloodied faces, cowering in the tray of a utility truck. They, too, are un­accounted for.

At Kibbutz Kfar Aza, an Israeli baby was found alone, possibly after being hidden by its parents, who are on the missing list.

The Quds News Network linked to Hamas and its hard-line cousin Islamic Jihad posted a photo collage of 19 female IDF soldiers who, it claimed, had been captured. This could not be verified but the images appear to have been sourced from the women’s social media accounts.

In many cases, families of missing Israelis had their worst fears confirmed when footage of their loved ones emerged online.

Yoni Asher told cable news outlet CNN that he found video of his 34-year-old wife, Doron, being kidnapped with their daughters, Raz, 5, and Aviv, 3.

They had been visiting his mother-in-law in Nir Oz, a kibbutz near the Gaza border. By tracking Doron’s phone, he realised they had been transported to Gaza.

“When I saw the video, there was no doubt – I know for sure they are taken,” he said. “Please help us. We are begging for your help if you can do something.”

Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Elad Strohmayer said: “Their family asked to share this so everyone will know the truth. There are many more Israelis who were kidnapped by Hamas terrorists.”

Not since the Yom Kippur War 50 years ago this week, when a thunderbolt offensive by the massed armies of Egypt and Syria threatened to overwhelm its defences, has Israel been caught so off-guard.

Saturday was not only the Jewish Sabbath, but also the holiday of Simchat Torah, capping one of the most festive periods on the religious calendar.

Now this day will go down in history as Israel’s 9/11.

Commencing before dawn, the Hamas assault was sophisticated and stunningly effective.

Bulldozers and explosive charges tore holes in the border barrier through which hundreds of fighters poured on motorbikes, in cars and riding utes. In one highly publicised instance, a militant was strapped to a hang glider that pierced Israeli airspace.

Others landed by speedboat, somehow threading their way through the heavily patrolled seaway off southern Israel.

They unleashed terror and confusion on town after town, penetrating to a depth of 25km from the frontier.

Gunbattles raged through the day and into Saturday night as the IDF and Israel’s security forces scrambled to respond.

At least nine Israeli civilians, mostly women, were massacred at a bus shelter in the town of Sderot, barely 1km from the border with Gaza. Their bodies were laid out on stretchers in the street.

A still taken from video appearing on social media purportedly showing an Israeli hostage taken prisoner by Palestinian militants.

Other victims lay where they died when their cars were raked by gunfire on a highway outside Sderot; one woman, overcome by grief, embraced the body of a loved one beside a wrecked motorbike.

In another video posted to official Hamas social media accounts, two crew from a disabled Israeli army tank were seen to be dragged from the armoured vehicle and savagely assaulted.

One of the Israelis was kicked to the ground, where the other tanker was lying motionless, his face bloody.

“We bring good news to our prisoners and our people,” said Abu Obaida, a spokesman for Hamas’s military wing, in a post on Telegram claiming that “dozens” of Israeli army officers and soldiers had been captured.

“They have been secured in safe places and resistance tunnels … what happens to the people of the Gaza Strip will happen to them and beware of miscalculation.”

Among the Israeli dead was army colonel Jonathan Steinberg, commander of the IDF’s celebrated Nahal Brigade.

Most of the Hamas fighters had retreated back to Gaza by nightfall, where they received a hero’s welcome from jubilant crowds.

Captured IDF vehicles were paraded through the streets.

The party atmosphere soon abated as air raid sirens wailed across the packed Palestinian enclave, heralding the onslaught of the fierce Israeli payback promised by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “All the places that Hamas hides in, operates from, we will turn them into ruins,” Mr Netanyahu said in a televised address.

“Get out of there now,” he urged Gaza’s 2.3 million mostly Palestinian residents.

Israeli airstrikes flattened apartment buildings in blinding explosions, including a 14-storey tower housing Hamas offices in the heart of Gaza City.

More than 230 people were reported killed and 1700 wounded in the initial wave of retribution by the Israeli military.

The IDF insisted it would continue to warn the residents of targeted buildings by “roof knocking” them – dropping non-explosive or low-yield ordnance as an incitement to flee.

In a tit-for-tit rocket barrage, Hamas fired on four Israeli cities, including Tel Aviv.

The suburbs of Jerusalem were also hit, despite the city’s holy status for Jews, Muslims and Christians alike, which generally spares it from attack.

As pointed questions began to be asked about the catastrophic failure of Israeli intelligence to give advance warning of Saturday’s breakout by Hamas, the country continued to mobilise for war.

And not only with Gaza.

Anxious eyes turned north, to Lebanon, in case the Iranian-backed militia of Hezbollah attacked and to the volatile West Bank territories where flow-on unrest by the Palestinian population threatened.