Israel-Gaza WarIsrael Orders ‘Complete Siege’ of Gaza as Troops Battle to Secure Border Areas

As the death toll on the Israeli side rose to over 700, many in the country were describing the events that unfolded on Saturday as their country’s 9/11, or Pearl Harbor. It was a day of dark records: the worst attack on civilians in Israeli history and the deadliest single day in the country’s 75-year history.

Politicians and military officials have tried to deflect the tough questions — how they could have been caught so off-guard and unprepared, why families under siege were left to fend for themselves for hours, why official information about hostages has been elusive — saying that now is the time to focus on fighting back.

But flashes of anger are visible among some Israelis over the absence of the state. And the widespread feeling of shock among Israelis over the obvious intelligence failure was compounding the fear of what might yet be to come. Israeli officials have said the country is at war with Gaza — launching punishing airstrikes on the blockaded enclave — and on Monday battles against Hamas fighters in border towns were still underway.

As sirens wailed to warn of incoming rockets on Monday afternoon, mourners at the funeral in Jerusalem of Netanel Young, a soldier who was killed on Saturday hit the ground or ran for cover.

Thousands of Israelis have channeled their nervous energy into initiatives to help the war effort. Food and clothing collections have been organized for soldiers and for survivors evacuated from their communities along the Gaza border to hotels and hostels around the country. Mothers have been donating breast milk to feed the baby of a mother whose whereabouts is unknown.

Shay Lee Atari cradled her own infant as she spoke to Israeli television from her hospital bed, describing how her partner had helped her and their daughter escape when gunmen tried to enter their home in the small village of Kfar Aza.

She said she had found shelter in a neighbor’s safe room and waited for 27 hours without food for the baby until they were rescued. Ms. Atari said her partner, Yahav Wiener, is now missing.

“I really don’t know where our state was,” she said.

“They abandoned us. They were on Twitter,” she added bitterly.

“As the biggest donor of the Palestinians, the European Commission is putting its full development portfolio under review, worth a total of EUR 691m,” Oliver Varhelyi, the bloc’s commissioner responsible for development aid, said Monday on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

But it was not immediately clear if other funding lines for aid to the Palestinians would remain intact, or how long the proposed review would take.

E.U. foreign ministers will hold an emergency meeting on the conflict on Tuesday and are set to discuss aid, diplomats said. Long-term, permanent cuts to E.U. assistance would not be decided by Mr. Varhelyi, the aid commissioner, and would most likely be met with resistance by several member nations that have long advocated preserving humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people.

The European Union’s budgeted support to the Palestinians for 2021 to 2024 is 1.18 billion euros, or $1.24 billion. The bloc provides two types of assistance: development aid, which is usually longer-term investment in projects, and humanitarian aid, which normally provides relief to people affected by conflict or natural disasters.

According to the Commission, more than 80 percent of the population in the Gaza Strip depends on humanitarian assistance. It wasn’t immediately clear on Monday whether the bloc was also suspending humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians.

Austria and Germany also said on Monday that they were suspending aid worth tens of millions of euros while it is under review. On top of the joint support, countries in the bloc provide financial support to Palestinians on a bilateral basis, and the decision on whether to freeze that assistance rests with the national governments.

Though the European Commission, the European Union’s executive branch responsible for managing the bloc’s joint aid, said Monday that it would freeze and review its programs, it was also quick to stress that its aid to Palestinians was for civilian humanitarian needs and in no way supported Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls the Gaza Strip.

“It’s very clear that the E.U. does not fund Hamas or any other terrorist organizations’ activities,” Ana Pisonero, a spokeswoman for the European Commission, said at a news conference Monday.

Some E.U. leaders stressed the need to distinguish between Hamas and Palestinian civilians when deciding on the future of aid to the population.

“I think we really have to make the distinction between Hamas, the terrorist organization, and very innocent Palestinians who are just as likely to be victims right now, and again, in the case of Gaza, have been for sixteen years,” Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands told the news media.

The Palestinian territory of Gaza has been under an Israeli blockade, backed by Egypt, for at least 16 years, since Hamas seized control of the coastal strip in 2007. The blockade restricts the import of goods, including electronic and computer equipment, that could be used to make weapons and prevents most people from leaving the enclave.

Germany’s development minister, Svenja Schulze, said on Sunday that the country had started reviewing its support to Palestinians.

“We have already paid strict attention to ensuring that our support for the people in the Palestinian territories serves peace and not terrorists,” Ms. Schulze said. “But these attacks on Israel are a terrible turning point.”

Emma Bubola contributed reporting from London.

The strike transformed a central shopping and transportation district in northern Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp into a scene of unrecognizable devastation. Videos shared on social media and distributed by Palestinian news agencies show bodies strewn amid the detritus of what moments earlier had been a busy market selling produce and other goods.

Broken concrete and twisted metal from the surrounding buildings filled the square, where people rushed through the rubble and clouds of smoke searching for survivors. As a fire burned on the edge of the square, a policeman, bloodied and covered in dust, sat off to its side.

“Is he dead? Is he dead?” a man was heard yelling in one video.

The strike came as part of Israel’s response to Saturday’s attack, when hundreds of Palestinian fighters swept across Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip, killing civilians and soldiers in shooting sprees, and firing thousands of rockets toward the center of the country. The fighters say they are holding 150 hostages, civilians and soldiers. More than 700 people have been killed in Israel and nearly 2,400 injured.

Amid widespread fear in Gaza about the Israeli response, many people fleeing other parts of the blockaded enclave had come to seek shelter in central Jabalia, where shops and homes surround the market area. Monday’s strike hit as vendors and customers packed the marketplace, stocking up on food and produce.

Sixty people died in the strike, according to a paramedic with the Red Crescent who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press. There was no immediate confirmation from the Gazan Health Ministry.

Israeli airstrikes began pounding the Gaza Strip on Saturday. Since then, at least 560 Palestinians have been killed, the Gazan Health Ministry said on Monday, and nearly 3,000 others wounded. The casualties included 78 children and 41 women, the ministry said, in some cases entire families. It was not clear how many of the other casualties were fighters, whether involved in the attack on Israel, or from the Israeli airstrikes.

“The Israelis have lost their minds,” said Raji Sourani, a lawyer with the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza, adding: “They are annihilating entire families.”

Israel says its strikes are targeting centers of operations of Hamas, the armed group that controls Gaza. It has confirmed hitting several mosques, saying it was targeting Hamas infrastructure or militants inside the buildings. The United Nations and Palestinian officials have said that at least two hospitals and multiple homes also have been hit, and many Gazans say they have nowhere to go to escape the onslaught of Israeli strikes.

Israel’s defense minister on Monday announced a “complete siege” of Gaza, saying “no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” would be allowed in. The enclave has already been under a suffocating 16-year blockade by Israel and Egypt, which limits what comes into Gaza and prevents most people from leaving.

Strikes hit four mosques in the Shati refugee camp on Monday, toppling their domes in attacks that the Gazan authorities said had killed people worshiping inside. Witnesses said boys had been playing soccer outside the mosque when the strike hit.

On Monday afternoon, neighbors were combing the rubble of the mosque, which was nearly unrecognizable as a place of worship.

Sumaya Ghabin, 30, was shaken awake at around 6 a.m. by the boom of an Israeli strike hitting the Gharbia Mosque, which is about two blocks away from her home and also near the Sousi Mosque.

“We woke up and find the house all dust and shrapnel,” she said. The windows had been blown out, she added, and her 10-year-old daughter was hiding under the covers screaming.

Mr. Xi’s amicable tone is likely to increase expectations that he will attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation gathering in San Francisco in November and meet with President Biden. Doing so would cap a tumultuous year for U.S.-China relations that reached a low in February after the discovery of a Chinese surveillance balloon over the United States.

Still, the specter of a growing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians could complicate any bid to improve ties between Beijing and Washington.

Mr. Schumer, who is in China leading a bipartisan congressional delegation, told Mr. Xi that he was “disappointed” by China’s lack of sympathy for Israel in its official response to the attack by Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, on Israel.

“I urge you and the Chinese people to stand with the Israeli people and condemn the cowardly and vicious attacks,” Mr. Schumer told Mr. Xi.

Mr. Schumer said during a news conference after the meeting with Mr. Xi that he had requested that “China use its influence in Iran to not allow the conflagration to spread.”

“They have influence with Iran in many different ways, and we asked them to do everything they could to not have Iran spread this conflagration through themselves and through Hezbollah,” he said, referring to the Lebanese militant group backed by Tehran.

Asked how the Chinese side responded, Mr. Schumer said, “They said they would deliver the message.”

China has refrained from condemning Hamas for the attacks, opting instead to continue casting itself as a neutral party in the long-running conflict.

“China is a common friend of both Israel and Palestine,” Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry in Beijing, said at a regular news briefing on Monday.

An editorial published on Monday in the Global Times, which is affiliated with a mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, blamed Western countries for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in an effort it said was led by the United States. It also warned that taking sides on the issue now would only add “fuel to the fire.”

China will most likely face growing pressure to support Israel — not unlike the calls that Beijing is facing to push Russia to end its fighting in Ukraine.

Yuval Waks, a senior official at the Israeli Embassy in Beijing, said on Sunday that he expected “stronger condemnation” of Hamas from China.

Tuvia Gering, an expert on Chinese foreign policy at the Diane and Guilford Glazer Center at the Institute for National Security Studies in Israel, said on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, that “China’s moral compass” was “broken.”

“As the Jewish Talmud says, silence is acquiescence,” Mr. Gering wrote on Monday.

While China and Israel maintain robust trade and investment ties, particularly as it relates to technology and infrastructure, their relationship is ultimately restrained by Israel’s deep alignment with the United States and China’s friendship with Iran.

China has a strategic interest in trying to be friends with all governments in the region; it garners much of its oil imports from the Middle East and considers it a key node along its Belt and Road trade network.

As the United States has drawn down its presence in the region, Mr. Xi has even tried to enhance his clout in the Middle East by helping restore diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran, two archrivals, in March. The next month, China offered to mediate Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Though those talks never gained momentum, experts say China could still contribute in a constructive way by offering to mediate the release of civilian hostages held by Hamas. One of those hostages is believed to be a woman of Chinese descent who was abducted Saturday by militants at a music festival, the embassy said on the Chinese platform Weibo on Sunday.

“China has an opportunity to showcase its leadership and mediation prowess in a more substantial way,” said Gedaliah Afterman, the head of the Asia Policy Program at the Abba Eban Institute for Diplomacy and Foreign Relations at Reichman University in Israel.

“Successfully doing so,” he added, “would not only mitigate regional tensions but also solidify China’s reputation as a key player in fostering de-escalation and sustaining regional stability.”

Reporting was contributed by Olivia Wang, Zixu Wang, Keith Bradsher and Alexandra Stevenson.

Mr. Zelensky said that Hamas and Moscow were “the same evil, and the only difference is that there is a terrorist organization that attacked Israel, and here is a terrorist state that attacked Ukraine.”

“If the world unites whenever someone takes women hostage and condemns the children of another nation, terror will have no allies,” he said in a speech delivered by video link to a meeting in Copenhagen of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

“The intentions declared are different, but the essence is the same. You see it in the same blood on the streets,” he said. His discourse was consistent with a wider aim, pursued by Mr. Zelensky since Moscow launched its full scale invasion, of setting Ukraine’s struggle in the context of global struggles for freedom and independence.

Mr. Zelensky compared the killings of civilians in Israel in recent days to those in the city of Bucha, northwest of Kyiv, in the early weeks of Russia’s invasion last year. Hundreds of Ukrainians were tortured or murdered in a series of atrocities being investigated for war crimes.

In an impassioned speech to the NATO assembly, Mr. Zelensky also singled out Iran for its sale to Moscow of exploding drones, hundreds of which have been launched at Ukraine on the battlefield and in civilian areas. He noted that Iranian officials had also expressed support for Hamas.

In addition to its commitment to supply Moscow with exploding drones, Iran has also arranged to produce them at a factory in Russia, Britain’s defense ministry said in an intelligence report on Monday.

The war in Israel comes more than four months into a counteroffensive by Ukrainian forces that aims to regain territory in the east and south of the country. The assault has yet to achieve a decisive breakthrough and this has made it all the more important for Kyiv to shore up support among its allies in NATO amid signs that some have wavered. Analysts have argued that visible success on the battlefield would make it easier for Ukraine to sustain its international network of support.

President Biden said last week that he was confident that Congress would approve military and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine “for as long as it takes” despite of opposition among some Republicans. His comments were an attempt to reassure Ukraine’s allies after the House passed a stopgap spending bill that did not include any additional money for Kyiv.

At the same time, voters in Slovakia, an eastern European state with historical ties to Moscow, elected a party led by Robert Fico, a former prime minister, who had taken a pro-Russian stance during the campaign. Ukraine’s counteroffensive has focused on regaining land in the south and around the eastern city of Bakhmut, which fell to Russian forces in May. But it has also been forced to defend against an attempt by Moscow to advance near the small city of Kupiansk in the northeast.

Russian troops have also raised their pressure on Marinka, a small city in Donetsk region where artillery duels have raged since the earliest days of the full scale invasion. Marinka also saw fierce fighting after Moscow sent troops to Ukraine in 2014.

A Ukrainian soldier, Lt. Ihor Skliar, gave an insight into the latest battle when he spoke on national television on Monday. Russia has been “constantly storming the positions” of the city’s defenders, he said, describing the city as “virtually destroyed.”

“The positions of the Ukrainian armed forces are mountains of construction debris,” he said. “The number of artillery attacks and the use of kamikaze drones by the enemy has increased,” he said, adding that the defense was holding.

In tandem with fighting on the front lines, Russian forces have kept up a daily barrage of missile, drone and artillery strikes against Ukraine. In recent weeks, that has included a renewed assault on the country’s energy infrastructure, a strategy that Russia employed to devastating effect last winter.

On the battlefield, Russian troops fired on eight of Ukraine’s regions over the past 24 hours, according to Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, targeting dozens of villages. One woman was killed in the northeastern region of Kharkiv, local authorities said.

In Kherson region in the south, the site of some of the most fearsome attacks, one person was killed and 18 others were wounded including two children, according to the head of the regional military administration, Oleksandr Prokudin.

It is not the first time that unrest has caused the suspension of operations; during fighting in 2021, the Israeli government instructed Chevron to shut down Tamar.

“Our top priority is the safety of our personnel, the communities in which we operate, the environment and our facilities,” the company said Monday.

It said natural gas customers would continue to be served by another Chevron gas platform, known as Leviathan.

Natural gas fields off the Israeli coast provide fuel to generate about 70 percent of the country’s electric power.

Chevron has been working on plans to expand production at the Tamar and Leviathan natural gas fields, and to add pipelines to increase gas flows from Israel to Egypt, which indirectly exports Israeli output in the form of liquefied natural gas from facilities on the Mediterranean coast.

The fierce fighting could slow the pace of energy investment in the region, just as the eastern Mediterranean’s prospects as an energy center have gained momentum. Israel used to be one of the few countries in the Middle East without significant discovered petroleum resources. Now, natural gas has become a mainstay of its economy, cutting dependence on imported coal.

He did not condemn the attack by Hamas or offer condolences to the victims, even though the Kremlin often made statements of condolence after attacks in Israel in years past. Mr. Peskov said that Mr. Putin did not have immediate plans to speak to Israeli or Palestinian leaders — a striking departure from past Middle East crises in which Mr. Putin cast himself as a regional power broker.

The Kremlin’s distant stance appears to reflect the geopolitical shifts amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a war that has brought Russia closer to Iran, a key backer of Hamas. Iran has emerged as crucial to Russia’s war effort by providing armed drones and support in evading international sanctions.

Russian officials have also voiced anger at Israel and at Jewish organizations for not supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, citing Mr. Putin’s false narrative that Ukraine is run by Nazis. That frustration also represents a shift for Mr. Putin, who long promoted Jewish life in Russia and closer ties to Israel, and built a close relationship with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

“She told me, ‘There are terrorists inside the house,’” Mr. Asher said in an interview.

Then came worse news: Ms. Asher Katz’s mother’s life partner, Gadi Moses, had left the safe room to reason with the intruders.

“She said they left — and they took him with them,” Mr. Asher said.

Mr. Asher, 37, hoped that his spouse and children were safe, at least. But then the phone lines went dead.

It was the last time Mr. Asher heard from his wife.

Tracking her phone remotely, he saw that the device was taken on Saturday to Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza, suggesting that she, too, had been kidnapped.

Then a video circulated on social media of abducted Israelis being driven through the territory, bundled into the back of a pickup truck. In the video, a gunman attempts to spread a kind of blindfold over a woman’s head.

Mr. Asher recognized the woman. It was Doron.

He said his daughters, Raz and Aviv, 5 and 3, and his mother-in-law, Efrat Katz, 67, were squashed alongside her.

They are now among an estimated 150 hostages inside Gaza, according to the Israeli authorities, most of them captured from small Israeli border towns on Saturday morning.

His family intended to return home to central Israel on Saturday evening, after a short visit to their grandmother’s village. Instead, it isn’t clear when, or if, he’ll see them again.

“I can’t sleep — I’m living outside my own body,” Mr. Asher said.

“I have two little babies, two little girls,” he added. “These little babies should not be held or kept by terrorists.”

No oil is produced in the Gaza area, and Israel produces only a small amount of oil for its own use, energy analysts noted. But experts warned that prices could go higher if the fighting were to spread around the region, especially if Iran becomes actively involved in the war.

“Any expansion of battles will have potential repercussions on oil markets,” according to a note released on Sunday by Citi investment research.

Energy prices had been slumping over the last week in part because of recent unexpectedly strong growth in the output of oil from several countries, including some in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, the oil cartel. Two main reasons were that economic growth in China remains weak, and high interest rates have spurred concerns over growth in Europe and the United States.

The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline in the United States on Monday was $3.70, 11 cents below a week ago, according to the AAA motor club.

But that relief for drivers is now in jeopardy following a stunning geopolitical event, much as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent oil and natural gas prices skyward last year.

“War in the Middle East can be generically bullish for crude,” said Clearview Energy Partners, an analytics firm, in a research note on Sunday night, especially if the conflict is prolonged.

Global oil benchmarks rose a little over 5 percent when markets opened after the weekend, with the West Texas Intermediate oil price rising to $87 a barrel, a relatively modest jump when war is breaking out in the oil-rich Middle East. The increase followed several days when prices slumped, bottoming out near $82 a barrel, on the expectation that demand for oil was waning. The inventories of American gasoline climbed last week to above the five-year average for this time of year. Only two weeks ago, many analysts were predicting a surge to $100 a barrel oil.

Prices moderated later on Monday, in a choppy trade, with crude about 4 percent higher.

One reason oil prices had softened in recent days was growing speculation that Saudi Arabia, the United States and Israel were closing in on a political deal that could lead to an eventual Saudi recognition of Israel. There were hopes that Saudi Arabia might increase oil output to cut gasoline prices to help the Biden administration sell any deal to the U.S. Congress.

Saudi Arabia has insisted that Israel make major concessions to the Palestinians, but the conflict is likely to complicate the chances of any deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Even though American, Canadian, Brazil and Guyanese oil production has ramped up in recent years, the Persian Gulf remains a key source and transit point for nearly one in every five barrels of global oil supplies, especially to Asia. Iran is still one of the biggest oil producers in the Middle East, despite Western sanctions in recent years.

Any indications that Hamas attacked Israel following prodding, financing and planning by Iran could escalate the conflict beyond Israel’s borders.

The Biden administration has softened sanctions on Iran in recent months, in part to encourage Iran to slow its nuclear program, allowing Tehran to export more oil into tight global markets. But pressure is likely to grow now to tighten sanctions again, as the Biden administration provides more aid to Israel.

Hours later on Monday morning, Israel’s chief military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, declared that Israeli forces had regained control of the communities along the Gaza border even as he acknowledged that there were still “pockets” of fighting.

Mr. Conricus, a reservist in the Israel Defense Forces, has been actively updating Israelis about the war and the IDF account has been reposting information from him. In one video statement on Sunday that the IDF reposted, he claimed that the military had sent at least 100,000 reservists to the southern border and he appeared to suggest they were preparing for a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip. That posting by the IDF called Mr. Conricus a spokesman, without explaining if that was now an official role.

His claim about the exact size of the force in the south could not be confirmed, but Mr. Hagari had earlier said that the number of soldiers in the Gaza region stood at “tens of thousands.”

When Mr. Conricus was an official spokesman in 2021, he released a statement, which turned out to be false, about the start of a ground invasion of Gaza. He later called it an honest mistake but acknowledged that the military had been seeking to deceive fighters in Gaza.

On Sunday he said that “our job is to make sure that at the end of this war, Hamas will no longer have any military capabilities to threaten Israeli civilians with.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told Israelis to prepare for a long war that will shift to “offensive” operations soon, a reference some have taken to mean that the military will send ground troops into Gaza.

On Sunday Mr. Conricus said that “our job is to make sure that at the end of this war, Hamas will no longer have any military capabilities to threaten Israeli civilians with.”

But he also acknowledged the difficulties Israel faces as it moves forward. “Unfortunately, and this is the probably the most dominant factor that will shape the activities for the future, there is a very large amount of Israeli civilians and soldiers held inside Gaza,” he said.

The couple’s plans were quickly upended. A hotel they planned to stay at in Tiberias closed. They were told they would not be able to reach Bethlehem. Their hotel in Tel Aviv told them services may be limited because staff members were being called up as reservists. Then they had to shelter in the hotel after hearing rocket sirens.

Despite the chaos, Mr. Izso, 59, and Ms. Craft, 69, held out hope that they would be able to continue with some parts of their trip.

“We’re not afraid, we’re not living in fear,” Mr. Izso said by phone on Sunday.

But on Sunday, their tour was canceled. The couple is currently trying to find a flight out of Israel later in the week, potentially to Greece, though many airlines have canceled flights.

“Maybe we’ll pick another quiet country nearby, and we’ll go do something else for a few days,” Mr. Izso said.

They are trying to make the most of their trip while they figure out their next steps. They spent Sunday walking across Tel Aviv. When they spotted people collecting household items including toilet paper, shampoo and canned goods for Israeli soldiers, they went to a nearby store and purchased items for donation as well.

The couple hopes to visit Israel again at some point to finally renew their vows. “There’s unfinished business here,” Mr. Izso said.

“At some point, we’ll return,” he added. “Even if it’s our 26th, 27th or 28th anniversary, we’ll renew our vows.”

This is false.

Soon after the Hamas attacks on Israel, former President Donald J. Trump and other Republicans tried to cast blame on President Biden — saying that a recent deal brokered to secure the release of five Americans detained in Iran helped to finance the assault. Iran is a longtime backer of Hamas, a Palestinian militant group that has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States.

As part of the deal in question, the U.S. facilitated the transfer of $6 billion of Iranian profits from oil sales from banks in South Korea to Qatar so that Iran could use it for food and other humanitarian purposes.

But that $6 billion is not U.S. taxpayer money, as Mr. Trump and others, including Vivek Ramaswamy, another of the Republican presidential candidates, falsely stated. Nor is there evidence that the money, which officials have said is subject to Treasury Department oversight, was used to finance the attacks.

In fact, the White House National Security Council said the money in question hasn’t been accessed by Iran.

“Not a single cent from these funds has been spent, and when it is spent, it can only be spent on things like food and medicine for the Iranian people,” a spokeswoman for the N.S.C., Adrienne Watson, said in a statement on Saturday. “These funds have absolutely nothing to do with the horrific attacks today and this is not the time to spread disinformation.”

The $6 billion was already technically usable by Iran for humanitarian purposes, but it was essentially frozen in South Korea because banks there were reluctant to disburse it and run afoul of U.S. rules, said Patrick Clawson, director of research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He said that the Trump administration had similarly tried to find a way to set up a channel for the money to be provided for humanitarian purposes, but was unsuccessful.

Even with rules in place limiting how the money may be used, Mr. Clawson said critics of the Biden administration may well argue that providing Iran with access to the $6 billion effectively freed up other money that the Iranian government could then use to fund Hamas and therefore support such attacks.

“Money is fungible,” he said.

A family member of Ms. Argamani confirmed to The Times that the video shows both her and Mr. Or. Moshe, Mr. Or’s brother, also shared screenshots of the video on Instagram, identifying both his brother and Ms. Argamani.

The weekend-long event, billed as a “psy trance music festival,” was attended by about 3,500 people near Re’im, Israel, three miles from the border with Gaza. Israeli security officials said up to 109 people were believed to have been killed at the festival.

The festival’s organizer, Nimrod Arnin, told The Times that around 6:30 a.m. Saturday, a rocket barrage from Gaza began, prompting an evacuation of the festival. Videos show concertgoers walking to their cars as puffs of black smoke rose in the sky.

Militants soon swept into the area, turning what had been a calm evacuation into a scene of panic and sprinting. Videos showed attendees fleeing south over fields and into a valley and a wooded area.

Mr. Or and Ms. Argamani had been trying to hide from the militants before being taken hostage. According to WhatsApp messages posted on Facebook, Mr. Or shared his location with a friend and pleaded for Israeli soldiers to come rescue them.

“Me and Noa are hiding here,” Mr. Or wrote. “Tell them there’s a gang of 20 men that are finding people who are hiding and lynching them.” He stopped responding around 10 a.m., the messages show.

Ravid Ohad, Ms. Argamani’s cousin, told The Times that family members were able to trace her location to Gaza, as of around noon on Saturday, using the Find My iPhone application, but haven’t received further information about her location or her captors.

“It’s still not too late to save my brother and Noa,” wrote Mr. Or’s brother Moshe in an Instagram post. “Israel state must act! Fast!”

Another video that surfaced online Saturday showed Ms. Argamani purportedly in captivity in Gaza wearing the same clothes she had on when she was abducted. A family member confirmed it was her in the video. The Times could not independently verify her location.

Appeals posted on social media asked people who attended the festival to report sightings of loved ones who have been out of touch since the attack.

In a statement posted on Instagram, the festival organizers said they were doing “everything in their power to assist the security forces.” They added that festival staff members are carrying out “scans and searches in order to locate the missing.”

Dahlia Kozlowsky contributed reporting from New York.