The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, confirmed yesterday that two Spaniards have been “affected” by the Hamas attack on Israel. This was the formula used by the highest representative of Spanish diplomacy because the state of the two missing Spaniards is not known. Without giving more details “for security reasons”, the suspicions are that both have been kidnapped by the militia.
This is Iván Illarramendi, 46 years old and a native of Zarautz (Gipuzkoa), who lives with his Israeli wife in a kibbutz very close to the Gaza Strip. According to sources close to him told El Correo, members of Hamas tried to access his house on Saturday.
Before that, the couple contacted those around them to alert them to the situation. The couple, according to the same sources, had to get into a security room in the house. When the police arrived at the home, it was empty, but there were no traces of blood, so the main hypothesis of kidnapping is gaining strength.
The second missing person is Maya Villalobo Sinvany, 19 years old and with dual Spanish and Israeli nationality. “Mr Minister, my Spanish daughter is missing in Israel, the phones are not working”. This was the alert message on the social network X that his father sent on Saturday. Exteriors then got in touch with the family, with which all avenues remain open to inform about the few news that have arrived at the moment.
The young woman, whose family lives in the province of Seville, was in Israel to do military service at the Nahal Oz base, bordering the Gaza Strip. In numerous videos that have gone viral these days on social networks, you can see this Israeli base occupied by Hamas militiamen, who gained access through the border fence.
Part of the 414th battalion, the photographs on the social networks of the young woman give a good account of her time in the military in the Hebrew army. Her father, a professor at the Faculty of Biology at the University of Seville, and her mother, an Israeli researcher, yesterday asked for “discretion” at this time, pending the whereabouts of the missing woman.
Apart from this, the head of Foreign Affairs also reported that Spain does have around 10,000 Spaniards located in Israel and the Palestinian territories, who “are doing well”. A figure that includes both those registered in the consular register and others in the area, for work or tourism, who contacted the Spanish authorities.
The minister asked any Spaniard or family member who knows of someone who is in the area to contact the embassy, ??consulate or the consular emergency department, whose telephone numbers are listed both on the ministry’s website and in social networks.
Albares confirmed that, after a short suspension, the flights of the Spanish companies Iberia and Air Europa began to operate “normally” again, which will allow a large number of Spaniards to return to.
Yesterday, the head of Foreign Affairs was also “particularly disturbed by the border between Lebanon and Israel”, where there are Spanish troops as part of the UN blue helmet mission.
The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, who had a telephone conversation with General Aroldo Lázaro, head of the United Nations mission in Lebanon, has assured that the Spanish soldiers deployed in Lebanon – about 600 – “continue to work for the “regional stability”, despite “the seriousness of the events”.
