Yaacov Argamani was inconsolable after he was shown a video of daughter Noa, 25, being forced onto the back of a motorcycle by Palestinian militants.
Noa is heard screaming “Don’t kill me! No, no, no’ as she desperately stretches out her arms to reach her boyfriend Avi Nathan who was in the clutches of attackers.
Avi was led away at gunpoint while Noa was driven down a dirt track. Last night the fate of the couple remained unknown.
Sobbing uncontrollably, Mr Argamani said: “I was always so protective but in this moment I couldn’t protect her.
“All my life since she was born I have tried to protect and hug her, support and love her. I wish I could at this difficult moment at least encourage her or say something to her.”
He told how he desperately tried to get in touch with his daughter but when she failed to answer her phone he went to search for her in the hospitals in southern Israel.
Mr Argamani said: “When I got there, someone told me about the video of her on the motorbike, but I hoped it was not true.
“Then someone showed me the video and I saw Noa.
She was so afraid. She was petrified, she was crying, I couldn’t watch it.” It comes amid reports of “a massacre” at the desert “peace festival” where hundreds of revellers had gathered for an all-night celebration at the end of the Sukkot religious holiday.
As dawn broke, armed militants on paragliders swooped from the skies before opening fire on festival goers at the outdoor party near Kibbutz Urim which is close to the border with Gaza.
Eyewitnesses told how partygoers fled for their lives as gunmen sprayed bullets through the crowd during their murderous killing spree.
Sickening footage later emerged of the half naked body of a female reveller being paraded in a pick-up truck round the streets of Gaza while passers-by spat at her.
Hamas had claimed the body was a female Israeli soldier but the victim was later named as German tourist Shani Louk, 30.
Her distraught mother Ricarda launched a desperate appeal for information after recognising her daughter in the video which was widely shared on social media and showed her surrounded by armed fighters and jubilant civilians yelling “Allahu Akbar”.
She said: “We were sent a video in which I could clearly see our daughter unconscious in the car with the Palestinians and them driving around the Gaza Strip.
“I ask you to send us any help or news. Thank you very much.”
Her cousin Tom Weintraub Louk said the family recognised Shani from her distinctive leg tattoo and dreadlocked hair.
He said: “We have some kind of hope but we have heard nothing. It is definitely Shani. She was at a music festival for peace. This is a nightmare for our family.”
Festival goer Gili Yoskovich told how she saw people “dying all around” her as she hid under a tree for three hours.
Ms Yoskovich told how she tried to escape in her car but was forced to abandon the vehicle after coming under fire. The young mother said: “They were all over the place with automatic weapons. They were just all around me.
“They were going tree by tree and shooting. Everywhere. From two sides. I saw people were dying all around. I was very quiet. I didn’t cry, I didn’t do anything.
“I was saying ‘OK, I’m going to die. It’s OK, just breathe, just close your eyes,’ because it was shooting everywhere, it was very very close to me.
“Then I heard the terrorists open a big van…and get more weapons from this car. They were in the area for three hours. No-one was there, no-one.
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“I was sure the army would come, I heard some helicopters, I was sure the army would come down with helicopters and ropes and go down into this field and save us. But no-one was there. Just all these terrorists.
“I was lying there for three hours. I was just thinking about my kids, my friend, about everything and I was saying it’s not the time to die.”
Ms Yoskovich told how she finally emerged from her hiding place after she heard people speaking in Hebrew and was rescued by Israeli soldiers.
She said militants were still prowling the scene looking for targets when she was plucked to safety. She said: “I was the first one to get out of the field.
It took others two or three more hours to get out and all the way people were dying – all the way on the road, young people.
“Many many people were dying on the road.
“Whoever tried to run away they were shooting from both sides. So best was to hide.” Mirit and Ilan Regev told Israeli television they had spent the last 24 hours searching for their two children, Itai and Maya, who had attended the event.
Mr Regev said: “We know Itai was kidnapped but we don’t know where Maya is, she is still missing.
“Our fear is that she was shot, we were on the phone with her when it happened, and she told us that they were shooting – then the phone went dead.”
The couple said they learned that their son had been taken by after receiving a video clip showing a group of young men, their hands bound behind their backs, being held in a dark room. They recognised his face among the others who were being held.
As the unprecedented invasion was launched videos emerged of terrified householders hiding in their homes while gunmen prowled the streets around them.
Israeli officials said “children. women, the elderly and the disabled” were among hundreds of hostages snatched after the co-ordinated invasion by air, land and sea.
Adva Adar said her grandmother, Yaffa, 85, was among those taken after her house was broken into and torched by militants.
She said she discovered her grandmother had been kidnapped after seeing a video on social media.
Ms Adar said her grandmother was among a number of elderly people who were taken from the Kibbutz Nahal Oz, where she had lived for decades.
Mothers and babies were also taken, she said. Ms Adar said: “I was on the phone with her and heard men shouting in Arabic outside, then we lost touch with her.
“At about 5pm, the Israeli army arrived and saw that her house had been broken into and set on fire. She was not there, that’s when we started looking at the videos and found one on Facebook that Hamas had uploaded.
“I cannot even start to imagine how scared and how uncomfortable she is.
“She is 85 and sick and has no medicine with her, we don’t know where she is or if she has food or water or even if she survived.”
“The only information we have is from the video that they proudly posted, which shows her entering Gaza and the people screaming at her and recording it in a festive way.
“We are heartbroken and have no words for what it is like to be kidnapped at the age of 85.” “This is our worst nightmare; this is something we did not think was possible.
“She is innocent and has done nothing wrong. The children and women that they took are not to blame and I just hope they will find a place in their hearts to keep them safe and bring them back home.”
Meanwhile a young couple told how they were on their way to visit relatives near the Gaza border when their car came under gunfire.
The husband known only as Maor said: “When we reached the first junction, we could not believe it, there were dead bodies lying in pools of blood next to their cars and then we saw groups of Hamas fighters with guns in their trucks and on their motorbikes.
His wife Shirel added: “I don’t know how we managed to get out of there. I was so scared, I put my seat down and laid back and just started praying.”
Dodging gunfire, the couple said they managed to reach a place with Israeli soldiers, who took them to the hospital.
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