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Fifth Canadian confirmed dead in Hamas attack
threw himself on grenade
By Stewart Bell Global News
Posted October 15, 2023 1:33 pm
Updated October 16, 2023 2:54 pm
TEL AVIV, Israel—The fifth Canadian citizen confirmed dead in the Hamas attack on Israel threw himself onto a grenade to save his girlfriend, his mother said on Sunday.
Ayelet Shachar-Epstein said her 21-year-old son, Netta Epstein, was sheltering with his girlfriend in a safe room at the Kfar Aza kibbutz when Hamas gunmen somehow broke inside.
They shot him and tossed the explosive at the couple but Epstein smothered it with his body, his mother told Global News. His girlfriend, Irene Shavit, survived and was later rescued.
Click to play video: '5th Canadian confirmed dead from Hamas attack in Israel'
Epstein was born in Israel but had Canadian citizenship through his grandmother, who was born in Montreal, said his mother, also a Canadian. He served in the Israel Defence Force until August.
“It’s really important that the world knows what we went through,” Shachar-Epstein said. “The people that live on our kibbutz are peace-loving people that hold their hands out for peace.”
“And what’s been done to us is slaughter.”
Israeli-Canadian Netta Epstein, 21, and his mother Ayelet Shachar-Epstein. Family Handout
Shachar-Epstein also survived the Oct. 7 attack by hiding in a different safe room at Kfar Aza. But her mother, son, and two brothers-in-law were among the 70 killed at the kibbutz that day. A nephew is missing.
After the alarms first sounded at the kibbutz near the Gaza border at around 6:30 that morning, Shachar-Epstein messaged her son on WhatsApp, and they kept in touch until he died.
The following is a condensed transcript of their messages:
Mother: Grandmother was shot and she is killed.
Son: Ok. What was she killed from? Was it a rocket or was it terrorists?
Mother: It was terrorists.
Son: F**k.
Mother: The remnants of the bullet is next to her.
Son: Ok. Help grandpa.
Mother: How about you?
Son: We’re hanging in there.
Mother: Is Irene afraid?
Son: Both of us are afraid.
Mother: Of course you are. ❤️❤️❤️ I love you my boy.
Son: ❤️
Mother: Call me now.
Son: What’s happening. Write to me.
Mother: Ofir [his uncle, who was the mayor of the municipality] is killed.
Son: Ya daddy already wrote to me. How did it happen? Do you know?
Mother: It was a terrorist that shot him.
Son: Mommy what’s happening? Give us a report.
Mother: We’re in the safe room, it’s locked. Did you lock?
Son: Yes.
Mother: Terrorists entered the house next door. And could be in the house across the street.
Son: I know.
Mother: Are they shooting in your neighbourhood?
Son: Yes and there’s yelling in Hebrew and there’s massive shooting and there’s a car that’s beeping all the time and I don’t understand what’s going on. They’re outside my apartment.
Mother: Ok my sweetheart just hold Irene tightly. I love you. The soldiers are on the way to you.
Son: We still hear them.
Unable to reach her son, Shachar-Epstein instead messaged his girlfriend’s phone. Her son responded, but then she lost contact with him again.
When she finally got through, the girlfriend wrote: He’s been shot by a shotgun and there was a grenade and I’m hiding under the bed.
Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca
Israelis near Lebanese border evacuated as fighting
with Hezbollah intensifies
By Darryl Coote
Palestinians stretcher an injured man following an Israeli strike on building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Sunday.
The United Nations reported that more than 400,000 Palestinians have already fled northern Gaza in the wake of a
massive Israeli aerial bombardment in which killed more than 2000 Palestinians half of them children and women.
Photo by Ismael Mohamad/UPI | License Photo
Oct. 16 (UPI) -- Israel announced Monday it was evacuating residents near the Lebanese border, as fighting with Hezbollah intensified amid fears that its war against Hamas might expand.
The Israel Ministry of Defense and the IDF announced in a joint statement that residents of northern Israel living within 1.2 miles of the Lebanese border would be evacuated to state-funded guesthouses.
The order, which affects 28 communities comes after the IDF had closed a roughly 2.5-mile zone south of the Lebanese border a day prior.
Overnight, the IDF said its warplanes had conducted airstrikes on Hezbollah military infrastructure in Lebanon. On Sunday, the IDF hit several targets of the Lebanese militant group while documenting anti-tank missile attacks on Israeli communities and gunfire from across the border at soldiers.
During the war, which is entering its 10th day Monday, the IDF has repeatedly exchanged violence with Hezbollah, but fighting intensified over the weekend, with United Nations peacekeepers reporting its headquarters in the southern Lebanese city of Naqoura was hit by a rocket and they are working to verify who fired it.
"We remind all the parties involved that attacks against civilians or U.N. personnel are violations of international law that may amount to war crimes," UNIFIL said in a statement.
Dashcam records terrorists shooting Israelis at point blank range
October 15, 2023
CNN’s Anderson Cooper was escorted by the IDF to the location of the Nova music festival in Israel, where 260 people were brutally murdered.
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