In a recent interview, a mother in Israel shared that she was on the phone with her two children as they were kidnapped by Hamas during its surprise attack that began on Saturday.
The woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to CNN, said that her children were woken up at 6:30 a.m. by the commotion. She was away at the time.
On the phone, her kids said that they were hearing gunshots outside.
“I started getting messages, texts, from other people telling me that terrorists are walking around free, trying to break into houses,” she said.
“At about 8:30, they heard the door break. They said someone was breaking the door, someone was breaking the door, they were scared to death. I can’t even imagine what they felt. And I wasn’t there to help. I was on the phone. And I said, ‘Just be quiet. Stay quiet. Stay in the security room.' Lock the door, but the doors don’t really lock, they’re not meant to give a solution to that kind of situation,” she explained.
“At about a quarter to nine, I heard, on live, on the phone, the door break. I heard them, terrorists, speaking in Arabic to my teenager and my youngest saying to them, ‘I’m too young to go there.’ They’re 16 and 12, so…. Then, the phone went off. The line went off.”
“That was the last time I heard from them,” she said. “It was a very very hard day…they took babies, they took two-year-olds, five-year-olds, mothers, just innocents that did nothing wrong. They were just sleeping in their beds. Even war has rules. They just don’t have any morals. They just…it’s something that you don’t do,” she said.
“They took people over 80. They took sick people. They took people who were shot, wounded, and dragged them into Gaza. You don’t kidnap civilians just like that, you don’t. You just don’t. And it just means how cruel they are,” she said. “What I’m worried about is what they’re [my children] going through.”
“I don’t know if they’re together, I don’t know if they’re apart,” she added. “I don’t know if they’re tortured. I don’t know anything.”
The mother added that she thinks it will take a long time for the government to “get organized” all the people who were kidnapped by Hamas over the weekend.
Our interview with an Israeli mom of two kids kidnapped by Hamas this morning: pic.twitter.com/Qv40ueRTMg
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) October 8, 2023
Guy reported that the Israeli government said more than 100 people have been kidnapped by the terrorists and taken as hostages, including some American citizens.
"The enemy will pay an unprecedented price," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in on-camera remarks, later adding, "we will destroy them and we will forcefully avenge this dark day that they have forced on the State of Israel and its citizens.”