Harrowing final messages sent by Israeli-American family before Hamas militants murdered them
A man, his wife and three children thought they were OK, but terrorists broke into their safe room
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Your support makes all the difference.An Israeli-American family who came under attack by Hamas militants on Saturday texted relatives to say they made it to their shelters safely — but then sent harrowing messages of their final moments as they were slaughtered in their home.
“They’re here. They’re burning us. We’re suffocating,” Johnny Siman Tov texted his sister Ranae Butler, who lives in Israel, The Times of Israel reported.
Tov, along with his wife Tamar Kedem-Siman Tov, 35, and their three children — 6-year-old twin girls Shahar and Arbel and 4-year-old son Omer — as well as his mother, Carol Siman Tov, 70, were all killed in the Hamas attack on Saturday.
The family of six were at their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz on the Gaza border when a barrage of Hamas rockets hit. They then fled to “safe rooms” and texted friends and family that they were secure.
“Hi guys, we got into the shelter in our house, we are all going OK,” Tamar texted a loved one.
But an hour later the texts had stopped. Hamas militants had broken into their home and gunned them down in their safe room.
Tov’s mother, Carol, was shot to death in her own safe room.
“Our hearts are shattered,” a family friend, Yishai Lacob, posted on Facebook. “An entire family was killed by evil murderers who shot the children and parents simply because they were Jewish. And this is just one story, among so many. It’s unbearable.”
Johnny Tov was an operations manager and wheat farmer on the kibbutz, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
His wife, Tamar, grew up in Jerusalem and received her master’s in management and public policy at Ben-Gurion University. She was a community leader who was running to become head of the Eshkol Regional Council.
She also served as an advisor to the Ministry of the Interior on regional issues and was the former director of the Bikurim Youth Village for Excellence in Art and Music, a boarding school for at-risk youth.
“Love Sukkot!” Tamar wrote on Facebook on Thursday, just two days before they were killed. “I enjoy the campaigning and am moved by the support and sympathy of the people I meet.”
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