Horrifying footage shows the moment an Israeli mother and her two young sons were abducted by Hamas fighters on Saturday during the Palestinian terror group’s surprise attack on the Jewish state.
Shiri Silberman-Bibas, 30, looked wide-eyed and frightened while clutching her two small, red-haired children — ages 3 and 9 months — to her chest as Hamas terrorists ordered her around, according to a short clip circulating online.
The family had been hiding in their home’s safe room in a village near the Gaza border when the armed fighters broke into their house, according to a report.
Silberman-Bibas was hunkered down in the room with her husband, Yarden Bibas, and the two boys, Kfir and Ariel, when they heard the gunmen shooting automatic weapons outside their windows, the New York Times reported.
Bibas, 36, who was armed with a small pistol as they hid, texted family members during the terrifying attack, according to the newspaper.
“I love you all,” he wrote.
A half hour went by and he texted again: “They’re coming in” — his final message, according to the Times.
Family members feared for the worst after the silence. Then they spotted Silberman-Bibas and the unmistakable bright red hair of the couple’s boys in the footage circulating on social media.
Bibas could be seen nowhere in the short clip.
Silberman-Bibas’ parents, Yossi and Margit Silberman, are also missing and are feared to have been taken as hostages by Hamas as well, the Times reported.
“I just hope that they are alive, and that they are together. And I want them home, with me, so I can hug them tightly again,” the couple’s niece Yifat Zeiler told the publication through tears.
She called the situation a “catastrophe.”
The young family is believed to be just a few of the 150 Israelis — including women, children and the elderly — kidnapped by Hamas and brought into Gaza. Another 900 Israelis were killed by Hamas, government officials said.
The situation for the kidnapped Israelis is dire as the Hamas military wing threatened Monday that it would kill one prisoner for every Israeli airstrike “targetting innocent civilians.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to take “mighty vengeance” against Hamas after the group launched the worst attack on the Jewish nation in 50 years.
Intense Israeli airstrikes have since killed 687 Palestinians, including children, according to Gaza health authorities and left hundreds of thousands without homes.
More than 187,500 people have been displaced across Gaza since the fighting began just days ago, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a report.
Many of the combined 1,600 dead on both sides are innocent civilians and thousands more have been wounded.
