Over 260 people, including 30-year-old Dor Shafir and 31-year-old Savion Kiper, were massacred by Palestinian militants during the Supernova music festival. Hamas was responsible for the atrocity. Soldiers armed with assault rifles opened fire on crowds in the Negev desert on Saturday, marking the beginning of a surprise attack on Israel.
A British mother and her fiancé had been searching for their son, Miryam Shafir, hoping he would be discovered alive. At around 7 a.m. on Saturday, he texted her, implying that they had found safety. However, she never heard from him again, and by Saturday night at 11:30, he had manually shut off his phone.
Ms. Shafir, whose family hails from Reading and Dublin, had previously petitioned the British government to aid in searching for British people and preventing this war crime.
Nathaniel Young, 20, was one of at least ten British nationals reported missing or murdered in the sudden Hamas strike. Hamas militants killed 57-year-old Scottish citizen Bernard Cowan in his Israeli house ‘in cold blood,’ and missing British photojournalist Dan Darlington is thought to have been killed when Hamas assaulted the kibbutz he was staying at.
The FCDO has warned against “all but essential” travel to Israel, the occupied Palestinian territories, Gaza, and the Blue Line border between Israel and Lebanon.
At this time, it strongly discourages Britons in Gaza from utilizing the Rafah crossing to enter Egypt. While Egypt, the United States, and Israel meet to discuss providing a corridor for humanitarian goods, Israeli forces have started shelling the area.
On Monday night, outside Israel’s London embassy, police had to separate supporters of Israel from supporters of Palestine. Pro-Palestine protestors shot fireworks at the sealed embassy, and supporters of both sides battled outside the High Street Kensington Underground station despite police efforts to maintain calm.
After Saturday’s attacks, which are thought to have killed over 1,200 Israelis and 900 civilians in Gaza, Rishi Sunak went to a London synagogue to demonstrate his support for Israel. Later, he joined the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, and the United States in signing a statement of support for Palestine that also expressed “unequivocal condemnation” of Hamas’ “appalling acts of terrorism.”
