TV star shares grief after sister was killed 'execution style' in Israel music festival attack

A popular TV star has shared her unimaginable pain after her younger sister was killed “execution style” while hiding from Hamas attackers.

Ma’ayan Adam, 36, a news anchor who appeared on Israel’s version of Strictly Come Dancing announced the news of 27-year-old Mapal’s death via a heartbreaking Instagram story on Monday.

The presenter said her beloved sibling did her best to conceal herself after Islamist militants invaded the Supernova music festival in the hope she’d spared their gunfire.

However, eventually, they found her and showed her no mercy.

“On Saturday afternoon, in this idyllic setting, Mapal, our baby, hid beneath a truck and played dead,” Ma’ayan wrote in her message, which has been translated from the original Hebrew.

“She held out for hours and didn’t move until terrorists killed her execution style.”

The 36-year-old’s statement lay over an image of a phone, still dusted with sand, showing a picture taken from underneath a vehicle, with green trees and blue skies up ahead.

Ma'ayan posted a picture of her sister's phone showing the view from her hiding place@maayanadam/Instagram

“This is the last photo she took. This is her phone,” Ma’ayan then explained.

“She and her boyfriend, Roey, moved in together last week and she was the happiest person in the world,” she went on.

“He was lying next to her [as she lay on the ground], suffered gunshot wounds in the back, and survived to tell us how she died in his arms,” she added, in a translation by the New York Post.

The television host said her family had been “crushed to pieces” by the loss and they were now suffering “pain I didn’t know existed”.

Mapal pictured with her boyfriend Roey, who held her as she died@mapal_adam/Instagram

Mapal was one of thousands of young revellers who were at the Nature Party event near Kibbutz Urim early on Saturday morning when armed invaders swarmed in.

According to witnesses, the sky suddenly filled with rocket and mortar fire just after 6:30am (local time) and terrorists began shooting indiscriminately into the crowd.

They then began seizing traumatised men and women – in some cases shooting them at point-blank range and in others taking them as hostages.

One such victim has been identified as 23-year-old Shani Louk, who was later paraded, semi-naked through the streets of Gaza, in footage that has shocked and shaken the world.

Shani (left) and her mother Ricarda who has pleaded for information regarding her daughter's whereabouts@shanukkk/Instagram/Bild

It isn’t clear whether she was dead or alive in the footage, but her mother, Ricarda Louk, has pleaded for information regarding her whereabouts.

Asked whether she believed her daughter – whom she described as a “peace-loving” artist – was still alive, Ricarda admitted: “It looks very bad”.

And yet, she told CNN’s Anderson Cooper: “I still have hope. I hope that [Hamas] don't take bodies for negotiations, I hope that she's still alive somewhere.

“We don't have anything else to hope for,” she added. “So I try to believe.”

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