In Israel, the families of the 17 French hostages from Hamas ask for help from the Élysée

Special correspondent in Tel Aviv

It's not a threat, or even really a call. More like a bottle thrown into the sea to try to alleviate despair. “I know that President Marcon has the power, has the duty to help us. He can have a photo for us,” says Meitav Journo quietly. Karin, a 24-year-old Franco-Israeli woman, has not given any sign of life since dawn on Saturday when the carnage began in southern Israel.

Her trace is lost in a final sign of life snatched from the flood of images on social networks: a photo where we see her in an ambulance with two other young girls. Having gone to party at a festival despite having one foot in a cast, she only had time to send a text message to her family. “If I don’t come back, I love you.”

“She just wanted to dance, that’s all,” cries Doron, her father. His wait is all the more painful as he is harassed. “My wife put our phone number on Facebook so the hostage takers could contact us. In fact, people send us thousands of hateful and mocking messages,” he despairs.

Also read “I hear people, mom”: Noya, 13, a French hostage at the heart of the war between Israel and Hamas

Céline Ben-David Hagar, 32, never came back from the rave either. “She left on Saturday morning with friends. Around 6:30 a.m., when the alarm went off, she told us she was coming home,” explains her husband, Ido. Extremely worried, the young man set out in search of him in the following hours. In the end, he only discovered the friends' car, pierced by bullets, but without traces of blood. “I guess she was kidnapped by Hamas,” he said helplessly.

So like the Journa family, he appeals to France and the president, for his wife and for his 6-month-old baby. “Both are French. France has an obligation to do something for them. “It can change the situation,” by at least asking that France obtain “proof of life” which would put an end to the unknown.

Bat-Cheva also begs for a sign from the kidnappers. “I don’t know where my son is, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.” Ethan, 12 years old, a Franco-Israeli was separated from his family during the attack on their kibbutz of Nir Oz. The young woman recounts a raid that turns into an apocalypse, between mass murders and looting, where her husband, injured, is also missing. “We are people who reached out to our neighbors.”

While she was taken on a motorcycle as a hostage towards Gaza, with her son, but also her daughter and the youngest 18-month-old, she managed to escape, taking advantage of the irruption of two Israeli armored vehicles. Ethan, on another motorcycle, continues. A final video, again broadcast on social networks, shows him in the saddle stuck between two terrorists. “I am convinced that President Marcon, for whom many of us spoke out, will do something,” says Jocelyne Goldapper, Ethan’s grandmother.

Gaya Kalderon, 21, whose father Ofir, sister Sahar, 16, and brother Erez, 12, as well as her 80-year-old grandmother and cousin are all missing in the bloody Nir Oz assault , also turns to this France, the cradle of her family but which she knows little. “I no longer have a home, a place to live, a good part of my family has disappeared, including my father, my best friend and my younger brothers and sister who I should have protected. I need help. Marcon can do it.”