A Beijing-born Chinese-Israeli woman named Noa Argamani was among people abducted by Hamas as the militant groupraided a music festivalnear the border with Gaza, the Israeli embassy in China has confirmed.
“Noa is a Chinese-Israeli … born in Beijing. At the time, Noa was attending a peace music festival in southern Israel when she was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists and taken from Israel to Gaza,” the embassy said on its official Weibo account, the Chinese version of X, formerly Twitter.
A video clip posted on the account showed the 25-year-old screaming “Don’t kill me. No, no, no” while being taken away on a motorcycle from an outdoor music festival near Israel’s border with Gaza, as she stretched out her arms towards her boyfriend being marched alongs by militants.
Argamani, whose mother is Chinese, is among dozens of hostages believed to be in Hamas captivity following the militant group’ssurprise multi-front attack on Israelin the early hours of Saturday.
Tel Aviv has responded with air strikes on Gaza, after declaring war and vowing to destroy the “military and governing capabilities” of Hamas, which controls the blockaded Gaza Strip.
The engineering student from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in southern Israel is less than a week shy of her 26th birthday, according to her Instagram and Facebook accounts.
“She was so petrified, so scared, I was always so protective, but at this moment I couldn’t protect her,” her father Yaakov Argamani said in a video clip shared on an Instagram account put together by her family to help find her.
He had been hoping it was all untrue when initially notified of a circulating video clip purportedly showing his daughter being kidnapped from the Nova music festival.
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“I was hoping this is a mistake and this is not true,” he says in the Instagram clip posted on Monday, showing footage from his interview with local Israeli media.
But when he saw the video for himself, “Then I knew for sure it was Noa,” he said.
The Organisation for Assistance to Chinese Businesses in Israel (ACBI) confirmed to the Post on Monday that her mother is Chinese.
Israeli soldiers take cover during a missile attack next to the border with Gaza, near Siderot in southern Israel on Monday. Photo: EPA-EFE
The Chinese foreign ministry said it was “verifying the situation”.
“I have noticed the relevant reports. We have always been opposed to violence and attacks against civilians. My colleagues are verifying the situation, so I don’t have any information to provide at the moment,” ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said in response to media queries on the woman’s apparent abduction and whether she is a Chinese citizen.
Four Chinese nationals have been reported missing amid the continuing violence and chaos, while three others have been injured, latest ACBI reports said. The number has yet to be confirmed by Chinese authorities.
More than 700 Israelis have been killed and over 2,000 injured, the Israeli embassy in China said on Monday.
Health authorities in the Gaza Strip said nearly 500 people had been killed and more than 2,750 wounded in the Israeli counter-attack as of Monday morning.
China has called for “calm and restraint” and an immediate ceasefire, with a foreign ministry statement on Sunday saying Beijing was “deeply concerned about the current escalation of tension and violence” in the decades-old conflict between Israel and Palestinian fighters.
The Post has also reached out to Ben-Gurion University of the Negev for comment.
