Grandmother taken hostage by Hamas is Holocaust survivor

A wheelchair-bound Holocaust survivor was among the hostages dragged across the border into Gaza by Hamas terrorists, US secretary of state Antony Blinken said.

Blinken described in graphic detail the horror which unfolded in Israel on Saturday in what he said was the worst attack on the country since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

“Indiscriminate firing of rockets against civilians. Thousands of rockets. Men, women and children dragged across the border into Gaza, including a Holocaust survivor in a wheelchair. People gunned down in the streets, civilians,” he said.

“It should be something that revolts the entire world.”

According to some estimates as many as 100 hostages including soldiers and civilians have been dragged across the border to be held hostage by Hamas.

“No country should live in fear of terrorists coming into people’s homes, gunning them down in the street, dragging them across the border and making hostages of them,” Blinken said on Sunday.

“That is intolerable for any democracy.”

The Holocaust survivor kidnapped by Hamas is not the first to have fallen victim to the terrorist group, it is understood.

In February last year, Naomi Perlman, 91, died after succumbing to shrapnel wounds she sustained in her leg after a Hamas rocket hit her home in Ashkelon.

Her caregiver, Soumya Soutash, was killed in the same strike.

Meanwhile, Blinken added, the US was trying to confirm whether American citizens were among those who had been killed and captured by Hamas.

“We’re working overtime to verify that. At the same time, there are reports of missing Americans, and there again, we’re working to verify those reports,” he said.