The household of Awad Darawsheh spent 5 agonizing days ready for information. Mr. Darawsheh, a paramedic in his 20s, had been working at a music pageant in southern Israel when Palestinian gunmen stormed in, firing at fleeing attendees and dragging others away as hostages.
On Thursday evening, his household obtained phrase: Mr. Darawsheh had been shot lifeless throughout the assault, stated Ashraf Ayoub, who oversaw him within the United Hatzalah emergency medical companies group.
Mr. Darawsheh joined a grim listing: He was one among greater than 100 killed in what seems to have been one of many worst massacres of the sweeping shock assault launched by Hamas on Saturday. And his dying underscores how the fear didn’t spare Israel’s Arab residents.
About two million of Israel’s residents are Arab. Many determine as Palestinian or share shut household ties with these within the West Financial institution and Gaza.
Arab residents hailing from Bedouin communities scattered throughout the south seem to have been notably exhausting hit. Ata Abu Mdegem, the mayor of the Bedouin Arab metropolis of Rahat in southern Israel, stated that he knew of not less than 18 Arab residents from southern Israel who had been killed for the reason that assault started. Some had been killed when Palestinian rockets struck their cities, lots of which lack protected rooms or ample public bomb shelters, he stated, and others whereas working within the farms of cities close to the Gaza Strip.
“We’re nonetheless in shock,” Mr. Abu Mdegem stated. “There’s nonetheless so many unanswered questions and confusion.”
He stated dozens of Arab residents had been wounded and a number of other others had been nonetheless lacking and feared captured by Hamas.
Ali Abu Sabeelah’s cousin Amer, 25, is one among them. Amer, a development employee, was within the southern metropolis of Sderot when Hamas gunmen attacked.
“We ultimately discovered his automotive. However he was gone,” Mr. Abu Sabeelah stated, including that the household wasn’t positive whether or not he was alive, lifeless, or had been captured.
Again in Rahat, not less than 4 members of the identical household — Yousef Zayadneh, his daughter Aisha and his sons Hamza and Bilal — had been lacking.
“These individuals got here and killed left and proper,” stated Suleiman Zayadneh, their relative and a neighborhood official.
He stated he was “pleased with being Palestinian” and expressed fury that Hamas had dedicated such acts supposedly within the title of Palestinian nationalism and Islam.
“What nationwide satisfaction? What faith?” he stated of the gunmen. “The individuals who got here to shoot and kill — they know nothing of faith.”
