Hundreds of stunned Israelis filed into a central police station hoping for word on the fate of loved ones lost in the wake of a Hamas infiltration from Gaza.
Though long used to war, Israel was blindsided by the multi-pronged attack by Hamas gunmen in which hundreds were killed.
Israeli media has reported that between 500 and 600 people were killed and more than 2,000 wounded in yesterday's attack.
But not only was the number of those unaccounted for unknown, many were believed to have been taken captive into Gaza -including young children - with others hiding in their besieged Israeli villages.
The Gaza border region, which is just an hour's drive from the police information centre in Airport City, remained sealed off by the military as troops continued street-by-street battles with gunmen, learning with each stage the extent of the carnage.
One mother spoke with Reuters after giving her DNA sample and handing over a brush with hair follicles from her son, who was at an outdoor dance party that was stormed by Hamas gunmen.
She declined to give her name.
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"The last we heard from him, he was calling from the car, saying he was trying to get away and that they were shooting at him," she said. "I'm doing whatever I can to find out what happened."
Outside the police centre, a man prayed with a rabbi as his fiancée filled in a report for her missing brother.
Yoni Asher, who was back at his home in central Israel after countless attempts to get assistance from authorities, said his wife was visiting her mother in the community Nir Oz near the border with their two young daughters when Hamas attacked.
"She told me the terrorists are in the house," he said. Then the call got cut off.
Later on he located her mobile phone through her Google account. Its location was Khan Younis, a city in Gaza. He then saw a video that spread on social media of them being taken to Gaza.
"I surely identified my wife, my two daughters and my mother-in-law on some kind of a cart, and terrorists of Hamas all around them," he said.
"My little two girls, they are only babies, they are not even five-years-old and three-years-old ... I don't know in what terms they are captive. I don't know what happened to them."
Separately, a British man "is in Gaza" following kidnappings by Hamas, the country's ambassador to Britain said.
"I know there is one British citizen who is in Gaza at the moment," Tzipi Hotovely told Sky News, without clarifying if he was believed to have been kidnapped.
"The Israeli government is doing everything we can to help those who are held hostage and every citizen who is taken is returned," she said.
The ambassador did not name the missing man but the mother of Jake Marlowe, 26, who moved to Israel from Britain two years ago, said her son had not been heard from since the attack.
She said he had been providing security at the rave party in the desert near Kibbutz Reim close to the Gaza border that was attacked.
"He was doing security at this rave yesterday and called me at 4.30am to say all these rockets were flying over," his mother, who gave her name as Lisa, told the Jewish News.
"Then, at about 5.30 am, he texted to say 'signal very bad, everything OK, will keep you updated I promise you', and that he loves me," she said.
"He is missing, we don't know for sure that he is taken hostage or dead or in a hospital," added an embassy spokesperson.
