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It has been four days since Yahali Ricardo had any news of her younger sister\u2019s whereabouts, and the silence is deafening.<\/p>\n
Ricardo\u2019s bright and vivacious 26-year-old sibling Oriya was among young Israelis dancing to the sunrise at a music festival near Gaza when Hamas militants stormed the site on Saturday.<\/p>\n
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Yahali (left) and Oriya Ricardo, who is missing. <\/span><\/p>\n Hundreds of bodies massacred by Hamas militants have since been recovered from the field near Kibbutz Re\u2019im, while harrowing videos of other revellers kidnapped and taken to Gaza have been beamed around the world.<\/p>\n Oriya has not been identified in either group, fuelling an agonising wait for a family desperate for answers.<\/p>\n Oriya Ricardo was not identified among the bodies at the music festival, but her location is not known. <\/span>Credit: <\/span> <\/cite><\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know what is worse \u2013 if she is dead or if she is alive because they have got her,\u201d Ricardo said.<\/p>\n She is just one of the many Israelis at home and abroad fearing the worst about the fate of loved ones missing since the co-ordinated attack that caught Israel off guard.<\/p>\n In an extraordinary escalation of violence, Hamas has threatened to broadcast the execution of hostages for every civilian target Israel bombs without warning.<\/p>\n Israel launched a \u201ccomplete siege\u201d of the troubled Gaza enclave on Tuesday \u2013 cutting food, electricity and water \u2013 and Ricardo feared what that means for at least 130 hostages being held in Gaza, her sister potentially among them.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are cutting water, electricity, [and] I understand why. But what if my sister is there? What if she\u2019s wounded? What if she needs water?\u201d<\/p>\n The last contact Ricardo had with Oriya was on Saturday morning when she woke to the sound of sirens over Tel Aviv signalling the arrival of the deadliest attack on Israel since its founding.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never felt so pointless in my whole life. What is the point of being a big sister if I cannot protect my sister?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a ritual for my sister and I that we speak every morning and I hadn\u2019t heard from her,\u201d Ricardo said.<\/p>\n \u201cI messaged, \u2018Where are you?\u2019 She replied, \u2018They\u2019re shooting at us. My friend died in my arms.\u2019 She just kept saying that her friend died in her arms.\u201d<\/p>\n Soon after, Ricardo received a distressing, bloodied image of Oriya\u2019s friend, before a final message at 8.28am. \u201cShe said, \u2018I love you\u2019… and then she went silent.\u201d<\/p>\n For the past four days, Ricardo and her family have searched every hospital, every victim list, in search of Oriya. At one makeshift morgue in a defence base where she was denied entry, Ricardo said she saw \u201ceight more trucks of bodies\u201d arrive that were yet to be identified.<\/p>\n \u201cThey took our DNA, but it\u2019s been more than three days. I\u2019m furious. I\u2019ve never felt so pointless in my whole life. What is the point of being a big sister if I cannot protect my sister?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody has contacted us. They cannot give information because everything that they put out in public, the terrorists use for disinformation. It\u2019s tearing me apart, but I understand why.\u201d<\/p>\n Adi Kaploun\u2019s whereabouts are unknown after she was abducted.<\/span>Credit: <\/span> <\/cite><\/p>\n A little more than 50 kilometres from the music festival site, the village of Kibbutz Holit also fell victim to Hamas terror at the weekend, with armed men spraying bullets into the homes of civilians and kidnapping others.<\/p>\n Among those abducted were Adi Kaploun, the daughter-in-law of Australian man Yonadav Kaploun, and her sons \u2013 aged four and four months.<\/p>\n While the two young boys have since been accounted for with serious injuries, their mother\u2019s whereabouts is unknown, but she is believed to have been kidnapped.<\/p>\n Born and raised in Melbourne, Kaploun, who is in Israel, was too distressed to speak about the recent events. However, family friend Moses Ben-Giat spoke on their behalf, describing \u201c50 trucks, fully loaded with fully armed Hamas terrorists\u201d that stormed the kibbutz on Saturday.<\/p>\n He said the village never stood a chance. \u201cThey were defenseless women and children. [Hamas] executed one house after another. They took some, they killed some and very few were left,\u201d Ben-Giat said.<\/p>\n One of the first homes militants struck was that of Yonadav Kaploun\u2019s younger son, where they killed his girlfriend in her bed. Neither of Yonadav\u2019s sons was in the kibbutz at the time.<\/p>\n With Hamas insurgents moving from house to house, Adi tried to hide with her sons but her front door was soon blown open, and the three were kidnapped.<\/p>\n The boys were then separated from their mother and marched through the village with another neighbour, Avital Aladjem. All three were used by militants as \u201chuman shields\u201d while they fired into homes, Ben-Giat said. Adi has not been seen since.<\/p>\n After briefly crossing into Gaza, Aladjem and the two boys escaped and have since returned to safety and critical medical care in Israel.<\/p>\n \u201cThe four-year-old boy was shot in the leg, which crushed his right foot. He was operated on, on Sunday,\u201d Ben-Giat said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe baby had so much gunpowder in his lungs and smoke … that it caused damage to his right lung.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, the family waits in anguish for news of the young mother. \u201cSurvival mode,\u201d Ben-Giat said.<\/p>\n Get a note direct from our foreign <\/i><\/b>correspondents <\/i><\/b>on what\u2019s making headlines around the world. <\/i><\/b>Sign up for the weekly What in the World newsletter here<\/i><\/b>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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