Noa Argamani: Kidnapped woman didn’t tell mother she was going to festival, family reveal
Missing Israel student Noa Argamani didn’t tell her family she was going to an all-night rave close to the Gaza Strip as she didn’t want them to worry, her mother has revealed.
A video circulated online shows the 25-year-old China-born Israeli student screaming as she is forced on the back of a motorbike by Hamas terrorists.
“Don’t kill me! No, no, no,” she pleads crying out for her boyfriend Avinatan Or who is being marched down a dirt path by militants just three miles from the border of the Gaza Strip.
It is believed she was captured after spending more than six hours hiding among bushes as Hamas terrorists fired indiscriminately and took hostages.
"She didn’t tell us anything because she didn’t want us to worry about her," her mother Liora Argamani told Insider, adding: "It is very, very hard for me."
Her family have not heard from her since they saw the video.
Avinatan texted Noa’s father around 10am to say the couple were safe, almost four hours after the first reports of an attack.
“Since that, no contact. We suppose they were abducted at 12. They probably were hiding for three, four hours begging for help”, close friend Shlomit Marciano who is consoling the Argamanis said.
“They started hiding after hearing the massacres and the shooting. And then (the militants) found them.”
Unverified footage of a woman dressed in the same green jacket as Noa was shared widely online.
She is seen drinking from a water bottle as she was reportedly being held in a safehouse by the terrorists.
Her mother says the family’s "worst nightmare" has come true but she remains "very" hopeful her daughter is still alive.
"I have no expectations of the humanity of Hamas," she said, adding: "We all already know what they’re capable of."
Avinatan’s brother told Israel National News that he initially found the video of his brother and Argamai by scouring social media.
“I started looking for it in the various Telegram groups. It didn’t take me long to find it. I saw Noa looking scared and frightened in the video. I can’t imagine what’s going through her mind – screaming in panic, when some scumbags are holding her and not letting her go.”
He added: “My brother who is a big guy, two meters, trains four times a week, a really strong guy. They held him maybe four or five of them, and just led them towards the Strip I guess.”
It came as Hamas fighters are holding as many as 150 people hostage in locations across Gaza following their raids on southern Israel Saturday.
Tomer Shalom told CNN he last spoke to his 20-year-old daughter Noam when she called, frightened and crying, from with gunshots flying overhead at around 8.30am.
Shalom said Noam, who is a paramedic, spoke to a friend on the phone around 9.15am from an ambulance where another friend was being treated for a gunshot wound to the leg.
It was the last time anyone heard from her, he said.
“It’s beyond understanding. You cannot imagine this situation that kids are going to dance and you know have fun … and they are not coming back home,” Shalom said.
