Relatives of loved ones killed, kidnapped by Hamas plead for help: 'The world has to step up'
A distraught family member described on “FOX & Friends” Wednesday seeing videos of her relatives being taken from their home in southern Israel by Hamas.
LeElle Slifer said she recognized her mother’s cousin, Kinneret, in a newly surfaced video of hostages whose hands were tied as they walked alongside Hamas terrorists. Additional video showed four lifeless bodies with physical characteristics matching the hostages.
“She texted us that morning. She was in the house with her husband, her daughter, her son, and her daughter-in-law and her little granddaughter, three years old. They were all there celebrating the holiday, and she said she was safe,” Slifer told host Steve Doocy, who was also overcome with emotion over what happened to the family.
“Then we started seeing videos from the terrorists that she’d been taken, reports from her husband that their daughter was taken, their son, their daughter-in-law, their granddaughter… and we just kept searching for news, and we didn’t know for so many days.”
Her voice began to break. “Then I saw the video online, and I had to tell my family in Israel that I had seen [her] laying on the ground lifeless, and we still haven’t recovered her body yet.”
Before disappearing toward Gaza, Hamas militants tied Kinneret’s son’s hands and shoved him into a vehicle with his wife and three-year-old daughter. Another member of their kibbutz – or community – was shoved in the trunk.
When they encountered a tank, the terrorists stopped the vehicle and got out, giving Slifer’s loved ones a chance to escape.
“[They] knew that if they didn’t do something, they would be as good as dead,” she said. “So they jumped, ran from the car…” Kinneret’s son hid in a field with his daughter for 24 hours until silence replaced gunfire and shouting. He then made his way back to the kibbutz.
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“Thank God they’re alive,” Slifer said.
But Kinneret’s daughter-in-law had to hide someplace else and has been missing since. Slifer said the family has to assume the worst has happened: that she has been taken hostage in Gaza.
“This is jihad. There are no rules in jihad. They’re raping women in fields. They’re beheading babies. They’re executing the elderly in the street. They’re taking [people] back to Gaza to use as human shields. It’s appalling. And the world has to step up and get these hostages out,” she continued.
Terror in the Holy Land also devastated Ofri Levy, whose family was kidnapped by Hamas. She begged for their rescue on Wednesday.
“The only thing we know is that they were taken to Gaza on Saturday,” she told FOX News. Video showed her sister-in-law holding her two sons as they were taken from their home by Hamas terrorists.
“We knew [she] and the kids were taken because we got this video in already on Saturday. We didn’t know anything about my brother until yesterday, which was his birthday, and it was the first time we got any picture of him, any sign of life, and we saw him in a picture surrounded by terrorists leading into Gaza.”
“He was bleeding from his head,” she said. “One of the terrorists had a hammer in his hand.”
Levy said her brother stayed in contact with her via text messages leading up to the kidnapping, telling her he was terrified as he heard explosions, gunfire and screaming in Arabic.
“The last text I got from him was 9:45 Saturday saying they were coming inside their house. Later, we also saw a video of them breaking inside my brother’s house,” she explained.
“I can’t think of anything else. They have to come back home. They have to join us again…” she added.
The death toll continues to climb in the harrowing days since war broke out Saturday. As of early Wednesday, nearly 2,100 have been killed on both sides of the conflict, including more than 1,200 in Israel.
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