Eight French Nationals Killed, Missing or Hostages in Hamas Attack, Says Lawmaker – News18

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Last Updated: October 09, 2023, 16:37 IST

An Israeli soldier works on a tank at a staging ground near the Israeli Gaza border, southern Israel, Monday, Oct. 9, 2023. (AP Photo)

French nationals missing, dead, or taken hostage after Hamas attack on Israel. Lawmaker calls for their release

At least eight French nationals were missing, confirmed dead or taken hostage after Hamas’s weekend attack on Israel, a lawmaker said Monday.

Paris “should hold Hamas directly responsible for (hostages’) safety and use every means to secure their release,” conservative MP Meyer Habib, who represents French people living abroad in a swathe of Mediterranean countries including Israel, wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

Habib added that he had spoken to the father of 26-year-old Avidan T. from Bordeaux, who lives in Israel. The father “confirmed to me that, as we feared, this young Frenchman… has indeed been taken hostage,” he wrote.

Habib had posted Sunday that Avidan was one of the revellers at a desert rave in southern Israel hit in a Hamas attack that killed as many as 250 people.

France’s foreign ministry said late Sunday that one Frenchwoman had been killed in the Hamas attack on Israel, adding that it had been unable to locate several more nationals.

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – AFP)