Hadassah Mizrahi, whose husband Baruch was killed by a terrorist near Hevron Friday and who was wounded herself, gave several interviews to the media Wednesday in which she described the horrific event and shared her thoughts about Israeli policies vis-a-vis terror.
She told IDF Radio that she tried not to let her children, who were in the car, see their father's wounds, “but they saw it, and my children said: 'Daddy, what happened? Wake up! Wake up! Daddy, why aren't you moving?'”
"Everyone wants to live in peace,” she told her interviewers “The question is, how? I am very angered by the fact that countless terrorists are released endlessly and we receive a result like this. I would turn to the prime minister after all of these attacks and ask him – wake up and do not free any more terrorists. Do not free terrorists.”
"The terrorists are savages,” she added. "Even if you hate Jews – this is something you must not do.”
In an interview for Hatzalah Yosh, the rescue response team in Judea and Samaria, she described vary calmly how the first responders on the scene were IDF soldiers, who were followed by police. Neither seemed to know what to do at first, according to Hadassah.
"We were driving from Modi'in to Kiryat Arba,” she told Channel 2. “At the Tarkumia checkpoint, we said hello to the soldiers, and kept going. After the first roundabout, a terrorist was standing at the roadside. Baruch shouted 'A terrorist! Shooting!' and pressed the gas pedal.”
"Then I took a bullet,” she continued, calmly. “Baruch's foot was still on the gas. The vehicle started to zigzag. I took the wheel and kept driving, away from the terrorists. I saw that we had gotten pretty far away and lowered the gear. Meanwhile, the bullets were still flying by us and I told the children 'duck down, duck down. Everything is OK.'
"Once I saw that we were far away from the terrorist I took a piece of cloth and covered my bullet holes, I called [police hotline] 100 and informed them that there had been a terror attack, and that they should come, and then when the soldiers came I asked them for a personal bandage to cover my wounds because I have to live for my children.”
Hadassah said that she understood immediately that Baruch had been killed. “He breathed his last breath and immediately fell on me, and I lifted him up instinctively.”
She said that she does not know where she got the presence of mind to save herself and her children from the attackers as she did. The terrorist kept shooting, she said. “He didn't give up, and I didn't give up either." Otherwise, she said, “we would all have been slaughtered.”
"We have five children, she said, “and they too will grow up and serve the country. It's what Baruch would have wanted.”
Interview, video by Hatzalah Yosh