Israel-Hamas war: mother of kidnapped woman says daughter is Israeli, not Chinese
- Liora Argamani says her daughter Noa was born in Israel, not Beijing, as indicated in a previous Israeli embassy social media post
- Noa, 26, is believed to be among dozens taken by Hamas militants during weekend assault on Israel
The mother of Noa Argamani, a woman believed to have been taken by Hamas militants during a raid in Israel, who was widely reported as a Chinese-Israeli born in Beijing, said she was in fact an Israeli native.
“[I] would like to correct this with you, she wasn’t born in Beijing, she was born in Israel,” Liora Argamani said in an interview with the Post on Wednesday.
In a post on Sunday on its official Weibo account, the Israeli embassy in China identified Noa as a Beijing-born Chinese-Israeli woman snatched by “Hamas terrorists”.
News of Noa’s kidnapping – and her supposed ties to China’s capital – had been widely reported by international and Chinese media.
In response to media enquiries about Noa’s nationality, China’s foreign ministry said on Monday it was “verifying the situation”.
The social media notification had been amended on Thursday evening to remove the place of birth.
