Antony Blinken embraces tearful 24-year-old Israeli woman who recounts horror of music festival massacre and pleads for help freeing hostages in Gaza: ‘We were saved by miracle. But there are friends that we love that weren’t’

A 24-year-old Israeli woman recounted the horrors of the Hamas attack on an Israeli music festival and pleaded with the diplomat to help free her friends who had been captured.

Blinken met the woman during a tour of a donation center on his trip to Isreal, where he stood side by side with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a trip intended to show American support for his longtime ally and to reassure the Israeli people.

“We lost a lot of our friends, close friends, a lot of family members. There are many people we know who were kidnapped and are now in Gaza. We really went through horror,’ the woman told Blinken during their meeting, describing herself as a survivor of the music rave.

“I’m just like — I’m 24,” she told him. ‘And I never imagined that something like this would ever happen in a dance, at a music festival. We celebrated love and we danced,’ she laughs nervously as she describes the event as people sing in the background. And it was amazing. And then the rockets started and gunshots everywhere.’

Foreign Minister Antony Blinken had an emotional meeting with a 24-year-old Israeli woman who recounted the horrors of the Israeli music festival where Hamas militants shot dead attendees. She pleaded for help to bring her kidnapped friends home from detention

‘We managed to escape. But there were many friends who did not. And there were many friends who are now imprisoned in Gaza,’ she said, with a crowd gathering around her.

She described both the immediate horror and the emotional trauma of those who lived through the Hamas attack on a techno festival where more than 260 were killed with others still missing.

‘We were saved by miracles. But there are friends we love who weren’t,’ she told the top US diplomat, who is Jewish and has family who lost several relatives in the Holocaust.

“Thank you for being here,” she told him. ‘It’s really important. If there’s any way to help, like first priority – first priority – is our friends and family who are in Gaza right now. we are strong here, we are powerful here,’ she told him.

“We feel it,” Blinken tried to reassure her, before the two embraced.

‘We want to bring them home. And I’m sorry you have to go through this,” Blinken told the woman, who was with her father and boyfriend.

The described the terror of the scene at the music festival, where friends and family were murdered

A photo taken on October 10, 2023 shows the deserted site of the weekend attack on the Supernova desert music festival by Palestinian militants near Kibbutz Reim in the Negev desert in southern Israel

The White House says it has no information about hostages seized by Hamas

‘We are thinking of them and trying to do everything we can. We want to bring them home. And I’m sorry you have to go through this.

‘Thank you so much for being here and talking to you. It means a lot,’ she told him.

Then he told her the value of sharing her trauma publicly.

‘I admire your strength and telling your story makes a big difference too. The world needs to hear it.

They spoke as Blinken visited a facility in Tel Aviv where donations are pouring in to provide relief to those affected by the terror attack.

The meeting came after the White House said it had little information about the fate of hostages seized by Gaza militants during the terror attack.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby said fewer than a handful of Americans were being held, out of 17 Americans who were unaccounted for.

He said the US had sent recovery experts to advise and cooperate with the Israelis. But he said the US does not know where the hostages are, whether they are in groups or individually, or whether they have been moved. He said no ‘proof of life’ was provided.’