It has emerged that Shimon Maoz, a Londoner in his 50s, was the first person to hear the screams of 46-year-old teacher Chaya Salomon, as she used her dying breaths to call for help.
Ms Salomon had just been stabbed in her family home across the street from Mr Maoz, in an attack that left her father and brother dead. Knowing that screams would not be heard if she remained indoors, Ms Salomon stumbled out to the street, and yelled.
She feared that her nephews, nieces and sister-in-law, who were barricaded in a room upstairs, could be next — and that the terrorist could then continue to other homes.
Mr Maoz, a high-tech worker who grew up in England and has lived in Halamish for more than 20 years, dashed to the terror scene, where he witnessed the carnage before managing to slip out. “He walked into the house, saw the terrorist, and ran back for my brother,” said his daughter, Miri Maoz-Ovadia.
Mr Maoz’s wife, Rachel, a dentist who grew up in Manchester, called security services. He told his son, a soldier, to get his gun, and they scaled a wall and moved to a window from where they could see the attacker. The son shot through the window to wound — but not kill — the terrorist, who has since been identified by Palestinian media as Omar al-Abed.
Father and son then entered the house — knowing that other terrorists may have been present — and gave CPR and other first aid to victims.
The son said in a television statement that he “was just in the right place at the right time”. The military is only allowing him to be identified as Sergeant A.
He said, with his back to the camera: “I stood outside my house and saw the attacker through the window. I understood that I had to act calmly and professionally. I fired one bullet that hit him in the stomach and neutralised him.”
This is not the Maoz family’s first encounter with terror. Three years ago, another child from the family was hurt, along with her boyfriend, by two Palestinian attackers who entered their home. Sergeant A scared the intruders away.
Ms Maoz-Ovadia, who lives close to her parents, became aware of last Friday’s incident when her phone rang during Shabbat dinner. She was not expecting calls as she is strictly Sabbath-observant, and did not get to the phone in time, but seeing a missed call from her mother, realised it was an emergency. “We quickly called back and she said there’s a terrorist in the house next door, call the security to double check they know,” she recalled. Her husband ran to the scene of the attack, which she is careful to talk about not as a “tragedy” but as a “massacre”.
Does she shudder to think about the danger that her father, brother and husband were in? “Once I knew all my family members were okay, the feeling I have is mostly one of being proud.” But, she said, “We’re looking forward to going back to being a quiet normal family.”
Rochelle Cohen, neighbour and friend of the Maoz family, said: “I will forever be in awe of their actions. You meet the types who are very gung-ho — these are much more gentle souls and it took an enormous amount of courage. I’m totally overwhelmed by what they managed to do.”
She said of Mr Maoz: “He is an incredible man, he is a gentle kind man. He’s very British — very law abiding and kind and I can't imagine the trauma he went through. For him to go running to the scene is just overwhelming — I don’t know where he found the internal courage to do it.”
But not everybody has been so complimentary about what the Maoz family achieved. The Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef has said that the son should have killed the terrorist and not left him wounded. “If it’s known that he came to attack the Jewish people, you must kill him,” said Rabbi Yosef. “Not just wound him, you must kill him.”
Speaking in a public address, Rabbi Yosef declared: “It is a shame they did not kill this terrorist. They should have killed him.” Others on the Israeli right echoed the criticism.
Meanwhile, a relation of the Maoz family, himself a prominent rabbi, has published an angry response to critics of Sergeant A who, he says, are “causing a lot of distress to my family”.
Natan Slifkin, brother of Rachel Maoz, wrote on his blog: “There are a lot of people criticising my nephew for only stopping the terrorist and not killing him,” he stated, calling these comments “foolish.”
He wrote that critics fail to understand the Israeli military’s rules of engagement and the reasons behind them. Rabbi Slifkin, who lives in Beit Shemesh near Jerusalem, appealed for people to stop the criticism, writing: “I understand that people feel tremendous grief and rage. But if you're giving voice to that, please try to express it appropriately.”
