Iván Illarramendi Saizar and Maya Villalobo Sinvany are the two Spanish citizens who, according to the foreign ministry, are missing after the military incursion of the terrorist group Hamas into Israel last Saturday. In the morning, paramilitary groups stormed several kibbutz and military bases, attacking military and civilian personnel in areas close to the Gaza Strip. The number of dead has not yet been clarified, but it has already exceeded one thousand victims.
Right now, and with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) claiming that they have already been able to recover all the territory taken by the enemy, the two have still not been located. And according to Spanish intelligence sources, no bodies have yet been recovered that could be the two Spaniards, neither the 46-year-old Basque man originally from Zarautz, who lived with his Chilean wife in a Jewish agricultural community, nor the 19-year-old, with double nationality, Spanish and Israeli, originally from Seville who was at the Nahal Oz military base, less than 800 metres from the Gaza Strip.
No signs of combat were found in the house where Illarramendi lived, a fact that suggests that he and his partner were kidnapped and taken across the border into Gaza by Hamas terrorists. Likewise in the military base of Nahal Oz, there was no sign of the young woman from Seville in the videos shared on social media by the militia who attacked the installation, nor in the human remains able to have been identified after the Israeli forces were able to regain control over the base.
Kidnapped and taken to Gaza
Without the bodies recovered, Spanish intelligence, which is in contact with Israeli intelligence services, believe that the two Spaniards, as well as the Basque man's partner, were captured by Hamas after the raid and are now being held hostage in Gaza, where, if the example of other terrorist actions is followed, they may be used as negotiating chips with Israel and, at the same time, as human shields, to prevent the Israeli army from attacking their positions.
This information, which the Spanish foreign ministry has already conveyed to the families of the two Spanish citizens is a mixture of relief and stress, knowing that it is not yet confirmed that they are dead, but that they may be in the clutches of terrorists in Gaza.