A national collective effort is currently ongoing to locate the whereabouts of Bahamian basketball player Zane Knowles, who has been stranded in Israel as the conflict between that country’s military and Palestinian group Hamas rages.

There have been thousand of casualties from both sides since the conflict erupted on Saturday after Hamas reportedly fired more than 3000 rockets into Israel killing hundreds of civilians.

The 31-year-old Knowles, who plays for Bulgarian professional team CSKA Sofia, was reportedly in Israel with the team with the conflict began. Since then, flights in and out of Israel have been grounded. According Eugene Horton, President of the Bahamas Basketball Federation, after the player declared himself safe early on in the conflict they have been unable to locate him in order to determine if his status has changed.

“One of the players had made contact on Instagram a few days ago and I think he had said he was safe at that time. Foreign affairs, government and the basketball community had been trying to touch base to make sure he’s good but have been unsuccessful so far,” Horton told Sportsmax.TV.

“We are not sure what’s going on. We’re following the news with the happenings over there but the main thing right now is to locate him, find out his circumstances and see how best we can assist in getting him to safety.”

Horton indicated that all the stakeholders in the Bahamas have been working together to try and locate the player and ensure his safety.

“Once we locate him, we will put an action plan together to get him home or to another country,” the BBF president said.

“We continue reaching out to national team coaches, players to see if anybody is getting any news of his whereabouts.”