"We hope she is still alive" - Taoiseach on Israeli-Irish woman missing since Hamas attacks

THERE IS still no update on the whereabouts of a 22-year-old woman who has been missing following Hama’s attacks in southern Israel.

Israeli-Irish woman, Kim Damti, last spoke on the phone with her Laois mother Jennifer on Saturday, October 7 just as Hamas militants launched their attacks.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said: “We don’t know yet whether or not ‘Ms Damti) is still alive, we certainly hope she is, and we will help in any way that we can.”

“I’ve heard her mother speak several times now. I don’t think anyone’s heart could not go out to a family worried in the way they are and the one thing Hamas has done is not just attack the people of Israel but also citizens of many other countries as well,” he told RTE News. 

When she last called her mother, Kim was running towards a car with a friend, in a bid to flee the rocket barrage, which occurred near the border of the Gaza Strip. 

Kim Damti was attending a trance music festival for the Supernova Sukkot gathering. 

Her mother, Jennifer Damti  told ABC News: “Kim didn’t realise that there were seven or eight Toyota vans full of terrorists, and they just shot everywhere. They just shot them, slaughtered them like ducks, and that’s the reason I’m here. Because I want the world to condemn this behaviour. I didn’t bring my children up to hate anybody.”

Kim’s father and brother have been going to hospitals with her hairbrush, hoping that DNA would match and might tell them if she is among the dead.

Jennifer Damti added: “You can’t sleep. All I can think about is where she is, if she’s suffering, if she’s still alive. I just want her back.”

Dozens of party goers were killed and others were seized by armed militants and taken across the border into the Gaza Strip.