After surviving a stabbing attack in Neve Dekalim 21 years ago, Sigal Sofer recounted the traumatizing firebomb attack on Friday in which she and three of her children were injured.
"We are recovering from the shock and fear," Sofer told Walla! News. "Now we must deal with the pain of the girl, the two boys - and this double trauma."
Sofer was first attacked by Arab terrorists while living in a Jewish community in Gaza in 1994. She was stabbed multiple times on the porch of her house while caring for her three-week old infant and year-old baby girl.
21 years later, terrorists threw a firebomb toward the family’s car on Highway 60, between Givat Assaf and Beit El, lightly wounding Sofer, Matan, 9, and Tair, 11, and moderately wounding three-year-old daughter, Tahal.
"I didn't see anything," Sofer recounted. "The kids were sleeping in the back and my husband saw the masked men on the hill. They threw two firebombs at us; one smashed the glass and the second ignited. We were strapped in. With one hand, I tried to free the seatbelt and move the fire. Uri stopped the car, went out and tore (the kids) off the seats."
At that point Tahal's dress began to burn, Sofer said. "We took off her clothes and then the army came. Tahal was in a panic. She wanted to be picked up and first was only worried about her dress. Later, the pain started."
"It's a terrible fear - those few seconds I was just hoping Tahal would stay alive," Sofer added. "The two other children were frightened, but I saw they were al right."
Tahal remains hospitalized in Hadassah Medical Center's intensive care unit in Jerusalem.