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BBC: In a horrific incident in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, Neta Portal suffered six gunshot wounds when Hamas gunmen stormed the community. Neta, 22, had not spoken to her father, Shimon Portal, for six years, since her parents divorced. But in a moment of extreme vulnerability, it was to her father – a police officer – that she turned for help. When Shimon received his daughter’s message, he was already involved in a shooting in Sderot. Doctors at Tel Aviv Hospital later removed the bullets lodged in Neta’s body.
Neta and her boyfriend Santiago described Kfar Aza as a paradise before the attack. During the attack, Santiago convinced Neta to jump out of a window to escape when the attackers threw a grenade into the room. Neta recalls the terrifying event, “They were shooting people. They were shooting the kids. And the people were shouting, ‘Please no, please no.” Neta was hit by several bullets, but even though he himself was wounded, Santiago carried her to safety.
Shimon was about to rescue his daughter when he received her second message. Shimon Portal says, “My heart stopped. My brain started to whirl. I was mad.” He fought off the gunmen, managed to rescue three other girls and eventually found his wounded daughter and her boyfriend. They were rushed to a nearby hospital.
While in the hospital, father and daughter feel both relief and outrage. Neta, still recovering, urges the Israeli government to act decisively against Hamas. “You want the truth? I don’t want the Hamas any more in my life. We need to destroy them one by one. We need to be strong,” she said. Asked about possible civilian casualties in Gaza, she explained that her anger is directed at the jihadists and Hamas, emphasizing that she does not want civilians to suffer. “But we need to fight,” she concluded. The incident not only physically and emotionally traumatized her, but also brought her back into her father’s arms amidst chaos and violence.
The entire article can be read at the link https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67089114
