Amid the fierce Israeli counter-offensive against Hamas after the October 7 terror attacks, desolation and sadness pervade every home in Israel, with many frantically searching for their family members over the last one week and urging the government as well as the Hamas to ensure the safe return of their loved ones.
A mother of a 23-year-old teenager, who has been missing for a week now, said her daughter went to a party on October 7 when the Hamas group attacked Israel.
"My daughter has been missing since Saturday noon. She had been to a party. At half past six, she called me, crying hysterically. She was too scared to speak. She said, 'Rockets are falling all around us. I don't know what to do or where to go. We don't know where to hide. There is no shelter here'."
"We talked to her as much as we could on the phone, trying to comfort her," she added.
She added that her daughter tried to run away in her best friend's car but could not succeed because of the traffic as hundreds of people were trying to flee at the same time.
"We were very calm and talked to her all the time. From half past 6 until 10:58 pm, we were on the phone with her almost every minute. They were trying to escape in her best friend's car but couldn't succeed as people in hundreds of cars were trying to make an escape from the area of revelry at the same time. They heard guns going off around them and saw some people coming," she added.
The mother added that around 10:15 pm, she got a call from her daughter informing that she had been shot and her friends were severely injured.
"At 10.15 pm, I got a phone call saying, 'Mommy, I was shot'. It's a phone call no mom should ever get. 'Our car was shot at, it is damaged', she said, adding, 'All of us are injured badly'. I thought maybe we could send, I don't know, police or the air force to rescue them. We tried everything but nobody could get to them. We still don't know how many terrorists infiltrated our land," the mother of the 23-year-old said.
Tair Kowalski, the family member of another hostage, a 19-year-old soldier at Israel Defence Force, said he has been missing for many days.
Recalling the horrific events that unfolded on October 7, she said, "They committed genocide on our land. They came in, burned burnt people, took away babies from their beds, while also taking women, children, and the elderly as hostages."
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