Siblings Alana and Liam Zeitchik sat in shock on Saturday when family members who live in Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel were seen in the back of a Hamas pickup truck in a TikTok video, presumably being taken back to the Gaza Strip as hostages.
Alana Zeitchik told NBC News' Tom Llamas that her family had faced rocket fire before, a harsh reality living in Israel near the Gaza border.
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But never did she or her brother imagine that Hamas would be able to break through Israel's border security and terrorize the country's ordinary citizens.
"I think we sort of went numb, and pretended it wasn't real," Alana Zeitchik, a Brooklyn resident, said of her feelings after seeing the video. "And then the next morning, my aunt messaged us to tell us that this was them for sure."
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Alana Zeitchik said the last time any of the six family members was heard from was a phone call to a relative from her cousin, Sharon.
“Sharon said, 'I don't think we can survive this, I love you.' And she hung up the phone and that was the last contact my family had with them,” Alana Zeitchik said.
