Over 1,200 people have been killed in Hamas' attack on Israel
British-based relatives of Israelis believed taken hostage by the Hamas group made emotional pleas on Thursday for their safe release. Hamas gunmen took about 150 hostages back to Gaza during Saturday's attack that led to a declaration of war by Israel. Thousands of people on both sides have died -- most of them civilians.
The family members displayed posters in London of some of those missing alongside the words: "Bring them home." One of the photos was of a six-month-old baby, another of a three-year-old boy.
"They need to be back home now," said Noam Sagi, who says his mother Ada Sagi was Kidnapped from her home when the group rushed to the Nir Oz kibbutz near the Gaza border.
"We are bleeding. We are in pain. We are in disbelief," he added.
Sagi said he should have been picking his mother up from London's Heathrow Airport on Thursday. She was due to visit him in the British capital to celebrate her 75th birthday.
"I shouldn't be sitting here," the 53-year-old psychotherapist, who grew up on the kibbutz and now lives in London, told reporters.
"I'm here because I need to ask for help to release these babies, kids, mothers and old people," he added, describing the attack as "pure evil".
Some 1,200 people were killed in the deadliest attack since Israel's founding 75 years ago. Israeli reprisals have killed 1,350 Palestinians in Gaza. The Israeli army said it found the bodies of 1,500 Hamas fighters.
The Israeli government says an estimated 150 Israelis, foreigners and Israeli dual nationals, have been taken hostage by Hamas.
They include Sharon Lifschitz's parents, peace activists in their 80s, who also lived in the Nir Oz kibbutz.
The 52-year-old said she had felt "hollow" since the attack but added she needed to "give a voice" to the dozens of hostages.
"The place is gone. The dead are dead. Somewhere in Gaza there are children and mothers and this is our fight," the artist and academic told reporters.
"We need people to get this sorted. We need these people to come back home," added Lifschitz, holding back tears.
Sagi said their "best hope" was Turkey, which has launched a negotiation process with Hamas for the release of the hostages, -- and Qatar, which has hosted a Hamas political office for more than a decade.
Israel has retaliated to the attack, which occurred on the weekly Shabbat day of rest for Jews, by declaring war to destroy Hamas' capability, relentlessly pounding the densely populated and impoverished Gaza Strip.
Lifschitz said she hoped the Israeli government were putting the hostages in "the equation" during its response.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)