An Israeli woman who managed to escape Hamas terrorists with her one-month-old daughter learned during a television interview that her husband had been killed.
Shaylee Atary, while holding her infant Shaya, expressed hope for her husband Yhav Winner’s survival during an interview with Sky News. Hamas terrorists had broken into her family’s home in Kfar Aza early Saturday. Atary narrowly escaped, but Winner disappeared.
“I feel like every minute counts right now,” Atary told Sky News. “He’s either injured somewhere or either kidnapped, so every minute is important.”
Midway through the interview, Atary can be seen with a panicked expression, looking at a family member who received a phone call and calling out for answers.
At that moment, another person in the home rushes over to hold Atary’s baby for her and deliver the heartbreaking news from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) that her husband had been killed.
WATCH:
As she was being interviewed by @SkyNews, Shaylee Atary got the worst possible news. Her husband, Yahav, was found dead.
Her cries of grief will pierce your heart 💔pic.twitter.com/0lJh3Qq5j7
— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) October 10, 2023
In the video, Atary’s piercing cries of devastation from the news can be heard echoing in the hallway as the family gathers together. Reporter Stuart Ramsey for Sky News said the family allowed the gut-wrenching scene to air so the world could understand what “the horror of war…is like.”
Before the news of Winner’s death, Atary told PBS News about her harrowing escape. She said when she heard the first bombing in her kibbutz, she thought it was a “regular bombing we have, like, each couple of months there.”
“But then we understand it’s bigger. And then, after 15 minutes, we heard shootings. And then people are voicing, saying (speaking foreign language) which is like ‘Come, come’ in Arabic,” she said.
Atary continued:
So, three minutes after that, we heard them outside of our bedroom. They just opened the window and then put their hand inside my bedroom. But my husband, before, when we heard them, we had a signal that said, ‘You are keeping the door; I’m with the child.’ When they put their hand to open the window, he pushed them to the other side and gave me a look to go away. So I took my daughter, one-month-old daughter, with no shoes, no phone. My husband was left there with a lot of people that want to kill him probably.
She said she ran away under a hail of gunfire and hid inside a shed, using things like flower pots and buckets of sand to protect herself and her baby.
“But then one family, actually, they saved me. They were the only one who opened. They had a camera around the house. And they could see I’m not one of them. So they could see I’m with a child,” she continued. “They opened up the house with a child. And we were in that house for 27 hours.”
Atary said she could not access food or water for her baby for those 27 hours, although her daughter has since recovered.
“She came after 27 hours of not eating. The hospital wrote that she had — she was so dehydrated that she cried with no drops,” she said.
Atary described her husband as a “good person” who “always liked the quiet.”
“He’s a great filmmaker, and he’s a great friend. He was my best friend. We were ten and a half years together, and we waited a long time for this child that we now have, Shaya,” she said. “So, I hope he will come back and he — will see her.”
Hamas launched the terror attack on Israel early Saturday and has thus far killed more than 1,200 and injured more than 3,400 people, according to reports. The attack occurred on the Jewish holiday of Shemini Atzeret, the last festival of the High Holy Day cycle.
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Chargé d’Affaires a.i. Stephanie Hallett via Storyful
More than 100 Israelis were also kidnapped to Gaza — including women, children, and the elderly, many of whom were abused during their abductions. The Palestinian terror attack against Israel has been referred to as the “worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.”
Itai and Hadar Berdichevsky were reportedly murdered after hiding their ten-month-old twins during the Hamas terrorist attack. The babies were found around 14 hours after their parents’ deaths. (Facebook)
In response to the attack, the Israeli Airforce has struck at least 1,000 terror targets in Gaza. Israel has also mobilized 300,000 reservists as its forces continue strikes against Hamas terror targets in Gaza.