‘I lost my baby’: Woman badly hurt in Tel Aviv terror attack speaks from hospital bed
Saba Gavriyot, 31, suffered miscarriage as a result of injuries in car-ramming last week; second woman seriously injured says she has no memory of attack
Two women who were seriously injured in the terror attack in Tel Aviv last week recounted the events from their beds at Ichilov Hospital on Monday in a video circulated to Israeli media by the medical center.
The two, one of whom was pregnant and lost her child due to her wounds, were among seven people hurt Tuesday when a terrorist mowed his car into a group of people on a sidewalk in the coastal city last Tuesday, then got out to stab others. An armed civilian at the scene shot the assailant dead.
Fighting back tears, Saba Gavriyot, the 31-year-old woman who suffered a miscarriage as a result of her injuries, said it has been a “very difficult” time since she regained consciousness earlier this week.
“I understood that I lost my baby. It’s very hard,” she said. Hebrew-language news site Walla reported that Gavriyot had undergone fertility treatments for two years before she was able to conceive.
The second injured woman, identified as Ricki Sheinfeld, 48, said she has no memory of the attack.
Sheinfeld said she had been waiting at a bus stop on her way to work when the Palestinian assailant rammed his pickup truck into people on the sidewalk on Tel Aviv’s northern Pinchas Rosen Street, then got out and stabbed others.
Surveillance camera footage showed the moment the terrorist slammed into pedestrians at a bus stop. Moments later he was seen emerging from the vehicle and rushing at and stabbing passersby and people who were sitting outside at a nearby cafe.
Sheinfeld, a mom of 12-year-old twins, said she sustained serious neck injuries and a hip fracture, and that she has a long recovery road ahead of at least six months. She also revealed that she had lost her sister eight months before the attack.
“Everyone tells me I am strong, and I’m supposed to be strong. I promised my sister that I would care for my parents and for her family and my own. I have to be strong,” she said from her hospital bed.
Ichilov Hospital on Sunday reported that both women were now “out of danger” and were listed in stable condition.
The terrorist in the attack was identified by the Shin Bet as Abed al-Wahab Khalaila, 20, from the southern West Bank town of as-Samu. The security agency said he did not have an entry permit to Israel.
The attack came as the Israeli military was carrying out a major operation in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, amid heightened Israeli-Palestinian tensions over the past year and a half that have included frequent terror attacks by Palestinians and near-nightly raids by Israeli security forces.
Since the beginning of this year, Palestinian attacks in Israel and the West Bank have killed 25 people, including a soldier shot dead Thursday.
According to a tally by The Times of Israel, 152 West Bank Palestinians have been killed during that time — most of them during clashes with security forces or while carrying out attacks, but some were uninvolved civilians and others were killed under unclear circumstances.
Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.