Tributes to Irish ‘angel’ who died after Hamas festival attack

Kim Damti, 22, was last seen at the rave by the border which ended with at least 250 killed (Picture: Handout)

An Irish-Israeli woman who vanished after Hamas militants swarmed a weekend rave in Israel has been confirmed dead by her family and officials.

The music festival in Re’im in southern Israel was one of the first places Hamas, a militant group which governs Gaza, attacked in their early-morning incursion.

Kim Damit, 22, was last seen at the Supernova Sukkot Gathering which saw a night of dancing to trance tunes end in a bloody massacre Saturday morning with at least 250 dead.

Her sister Laura paid tribute to Kim on Facebook, calling her ‘our angel, our flower’.

‘Kim, my blood. Who was murdered by the cursed terrorists,’ she said.

In a statement to Irish public broadcaster RTÉ, Kim’s aunt Pat Cooper, from Portlaoise, a town in Laois County, thanked those who supported the family ‘with love and encouragement’.

Cooper added: ‘For now all we have is hope.’

Tánaiste and foreign affairs minister Micheál Martin said with a sense of ‘immense sadness’ on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Kim had been killed.

He said yesterday: ‘When news reached us over the weekend that an Irish citizen was one of the many hundreds missing after the repugnant terrorist attack by Hamas in Israel, we hoped against hope that she would be found safely.

‘The news that this hope has now been extinguished is devastating.

‘Anyone looking at the photo of Kim in the media over the last few days will have been struck by the radiance and energy in her expression; a young 22-year-old woman with a whole life ahead of her, full of promise.’

Martin added that Irish government officials are supporting Kim’s loved ones and he has spoken with them.

‘We are with them in their grief,’ he said, adding: ‘Our thoughts remain with all the families of those who have died, who are injured or who are missing in the wake of these terrible events.’

Gaza has been pounded by Israeli airstrikes in the days following the Saturday incursion (Picture: AP)

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar added: ‘As a nation we are united in mourning for Kim Damti. This vibrant young Irish-Israeli woman was struck down in her prime, with her adult life ahead of her.

‘Her death, and the deaths of more than a thousand other citizens of Israel and from around the world, was senseless and barbaric.’

Supernova was a weekend-long outdoor rave attended by about 3,500 people.

But an alarm blared at around 7am on Saturday of a rocket attack hurtling towards them, with festival-goers fleeing to bushes and underneath vehicles as the weapons whistled above them and armed Hamas fighters flooded the Negev desert.

The death toll in Israel reached more than 1,300 – a tally which the IDF says is made up ‘overwhelmingly of civilians’ – with at least 2,700 wounded.

At least 1,203 citizens have been killed in Palestine and 5,763 injured ‘with various wounds’, Gazan health officials said today.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected].

For more stories like this, check our news page.

‘Our angel, our flower.’