“Terrorists are at home” Mom and two little girls among Hamas hostages

An Israeli mother and her two young daughters were among them of more than 100 civilians held hostage by Hamas terrorists, who invaded the country in a bloody surprise attack on Saturday.

Doron Asher had gone with her young girls to visit their grandmother in the village of Nir Oz near the Gaza border at the weekend when Hamas fighters went to the house, Reuters reported. Terrified, she called her husband, Yoni, back in central Israel, but the phone was disconnected and she has not been heard from since. “He told me the terrorists are in the house” and that was it, Yoni said.

Tracing Doron’s phone, her location showed she was on the other side of the border in Gaza, Yoni said. His fears were later confirmed when he saw videos on social media that clearly showed Doron and their daughters being loaded at gunpoint into a cart with other hostages and being carried away by Hamas fighters, the New York Post reports.

“I definitely recognized my wife, my two daughters and my mother-in-law on a cart and surrounded by Hamas terrorists,” Yoni said. “My two little girls, they’re just babies, they’re not even 5 and 3 years old. … I do not know on what terms they are prisoners. I don’t know what happened to them.”

Yoni made a desperate plea to keep his family safe – and even offered himself as a hostage in exchange for their return. “I want to ask Hamas: Do not harm them. Do not harm the little children. Don’t hurt women.”

“If you want me instead, I’m willing to come.”

Hundreds of Israelis have been killed since Hamas fighters invaded the country on Saturday. Thousands have also been injured. Many videos have emerged showing women, old and young, being carried screaming onto motorbikes and cars and loaded into trucks and carriages. Survivors of a music festival targeted by Hamas said militants shot in the legs to prevent them from escaping.