‘I heard cries for help from the trunk’ – IDF officer saves woman from kidnapper

“She hugged me as if I was her savior and started crying hysterically,” IDF officer recounts.

By World Israel News Staff

During the massacre at the Super Nova Festival on Saturday, Captain Amit Gafni managed to save an Israeli woman who was forced into the trunk of a terrorist’s car from being kidnapped to the Gaza Strip.

Speaking to Hebrew-language news outlet Ma’ariv, Gafni recounted that his unit had started receiving notifications that terrorists had infiltrated into Israel, but they were not aware of the scale of the event until they reached Kibbutz Re’im.

At least 260 revelers were killed at the Super Nova outdoor music festival, which was held on farmland belonging to the kibbutz. The event will likely be enshrined as the deadliest ever terror attack in Israeli history, and the largest incidence of mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust.

Gafni described bearing witness to an incredibly bloody scene when his battalion reached the party, with scores of people dead and wounded.

The troops left their medics behind to treat those who were injured, and scanned the area in pursuit of the terrorists.

Along with a colleague, Gafni noticed a suspicious man sitting in a vehicle on the side of the road, wearing all black clothing that partially obscured his face.

When Gafni approached, the man started muttering “Allahu Akbar” and praying in Arabic. Gafni was preparing to arrest the suspect when he heard a woman’s cries coming from the vehicle.

“I heard a scream from the trunk – ‘Help me, help me.’ So I understand for sure that it was a terrorist who tried to kidnap a woman to the Gaza Strip, and I shot him and killed him,” Gafni said.

His colleague “opened the trunk of the vehicle and suddenly we saw a girl getting out. She hugged me as if I was her savior and started crying hysterically. We took her to to the police, then continued searching for more terrorists.”

The woman told Gafni that the terrorist, posing as a Good Samaritan, had seen that the woman was in distress following the initial shootings and asked if she needed help.

“He told her, ‘I want to help you, come with me,’ and then began to beat and attack her, and locked her in the trunk. He had already started driving towards Gaza, and was very close to making it there.”

The woman Gafni and his colleague rescued, he said, “could have been among the hostages now. I’m glad that we made contact with the terrorist and that we were able to get her back.”