Boy, 6, alerted Elad guards during attack: ‘There are terrorists, my father is dead’

The 6-year-old son of Yonatan Havakuk, one of three men killed in Elad last week, ran to tell security guards that his father was dead and that a terror attack was underway, the child’s uncle said Sunday.

Meir Illuz told the Kan public broadcaster that while his nephew was a hero, he needed care after witnessing the extreme violence.

“After all, he is a child,” Illuz said. “He is a hero… He didn’t just stand there. He left his father and went to the security guards and told them, ‘My father is dead, there are terrorists.’ He is a hero, and his father is a hero.”

Havakuk’s widow told Army Radio that her son said his father chose not to run away during the attack.

“My son saw the entire incident,” Limor Havakuk said. “He said his father could have run away, but decided to stay.”

Limor said Friday that her late husband put up a prolonged struggle against his attacker, allowing others to escape.

Mourners gather at the funeral processions for Yonatan Havakuk and Boaz Gol, a day after they were killed in a stabbing attack in the central Israeli city of Elad, May 6, 2022. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

The brother-in-law of a man who remained in critical condition on Sunday said the man’s children were traumatized after witnessing the attack.

“His four small children saw everything,” Netanel Yakovov, the brother-in-law of Shai Ben Shlomo, told Army Radio.

“They can’t sleep, they dream about their father. When they attacked him, the children ran away, and the 2-year-old baby in the stroller stayed and saw. She told us, ‘Mom, Dad, hit,’ Yakovov said. “It’s a horror movie.”

Yakovov said Ben Shlomo was still in critical condition and unconscious.

“The two terrorists seriously injured him in the head. He is not yet out of danger,” Yakovov said.

The three men killed in the attack — Havakuk, Boaz Gol and Oren Ben Yiftah — left behind 16 children between them.

Three others were seriously wounded during the knife and axe attack Thursday evening at the tail end of Independence Day in the predominantly Haredi city of Elad in the center of the country.

The two Palestinian suspects were captured on Sunday, some 60 hours after the attack.

The Elad attack followed a wave of terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank in recent weeks, and repeated threats by Palestinian terror groups over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

It brought to 19 the number of people killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank since March 22 this year.