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'I promise we'll be there soon': Heartbreaking final text from Israeli woman to mother killed by Hamas
14 October 2023, 17:59 | Updated: 14 October 2023, 23:30
An Israeli woman whose mother was murdered by Hamas in a massacre of civilians has laid bare their heartbreaking final conversation as the group raided her kibbutz.
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Hava Ben Ami was killed by Hamas as they raided her community of Be'eri in southern Israel last Saturday. She was among at least 110 men, women and children killed in the massacre.
Her daughter, Noam Ben Ami Revach, told LBC that she had urged Hava to hide from Hamas in her cupboard, as they began their attacks.
Noam told LBC's Sangita Myska: "My husband woke me up at eight o'clock in the morning, and said that there was something really bad going on down south."
She said that she was "sure" that her mother would be fine, because they are used to aggression from Hamas, and she has a shelter in her house.
Noam said:"So I called her at eight o'clock in the morning. And she didn't realise what was going on. She was watching television in the living room... at that point, I realised that Hamas was going inside the kibbutz.
"So I told her, 'please turn off the television and go quickly hide in the in the closet and put something over you and just you're not getting out, put the phone on silent, and no matter what happens, you're not getting out'. And she did. And we continued texting.
Noam added that at "around 12" her mother disappeared for five minutes.
She said: "And when she came back... she wrote to me 'they were just in the house. I'm so terrified'. And I told her 'Don't worry, we'll be there soon to get you out. I promise we'll be there soon. Somebody will get you out.'
"I think it was around 1.30 When she disappeared from from the phone and and we didn't hear from her again.
"And all that time my niece was in it she was in another in another house in the kibbutz she was there by yourself as well. And we continue being in touch with her. Every few minutes just to see that she's okay.
"And fortunately she gets she gets rescued around five o'clock in the afternoon, the soldiers took her out and she was begging them 'please check my grandma'.
"The police... couldn't go there because there was there was too much shooting at that area where my mum lives."
Noam said she and her husband have tried to spare their children the details of their grandmother's death.
"We told my daughter who is almost six... that grandma's is dead, and she went back to her angel, and she's safe now and forever in our hearts."
She added that she had since seen pictures of her mother's house, and "there's nothing left of it. Nothing at all.
"So, you know we don't have memories as well, all of our pictures were there."
Noam said that taken as a whole the Hamas attack was like a nightmare that was impossible to understand.
She said: "One story of one person is unbelievable, and it is something that we cannot bear. And there's so many stories, and there's so much more and there's so much hatred, that I don't think that we can really come to, to understand or realise or, you know, we all waiting to just wake up.
"It feels like a nightmare that we're just one day we're going to wake up out of it."
