Uriel Leban told Kan News about how he and his wife saved their baby’s life by placing him on the window sill so he could breathe as they huddled in a house set on fire by Hamas terrorists on October 7th.

Uriel, who lived with his wife Amy on Kibbutz Nirim in the Gaza border area, spoke to Kan 17 days after the massacre. His eyes are still noticeably swollen due to spending six hours in a smoke-filled room and he also suffered damage to his lungs.

That Shabbos, Uriel was home with his wife and infant. His mother-in-law was there visiting as she had come for the baby’s bris, which was two days earlier. When rocket sirens began blaring at 6:30 a.m., they all entered the safe room.  After about an hour of non-stop rocket sirens, they began to hear the sound of gunfire and shouting in Arabic and they understood that terrorists had infiltrated the kibbutz.

“Our worst nightmare began,” Uriel said. He said they secured the door of their safe room by lifting the handle upward. The window was already closed. Uriel added that the safe rooms are only designed to protect against rockets – they cannot keep out terrorists or light weapons.

At about 8 a.m., the terrorists reached their home and shot at the front door of their house and the lock blew away. They then tried to enter the safe room. Together, Uriel and his wife held the door closed to keep the terrorists out, adding that over two weeks later, his hands still hurt from holding the handle of the door up. His mother-in-law held the baby and tried to keep him quiet. At a certain point, the terrorists gave up on trying to open the door and instead lit the house on fire.

They began gasping for breath inside the safe room. While Uriel’s wife continued holding the door in case the terrorists returned, Uriel opened the metal door of the safe room and slid the glass open so they could breathe. They then put the baby on the window sill to enable him to survive as his breathing had already become shallow. Uriel said that they preferred to take the risk of opening the window and putting him on the sill than having him die in their arms. “It was extremely risky as terrorists were still around – whenever we heard gunfire and the sound of shouting in Arabic, we put him back in the crib and closed the window. But we couldn’t remain with the window closed for more than five minutes because we would start choking.”

“Our bodies were already tired. It was hard for us to get up. Our eyes were tearing. The IDF reached the kibbutz at 12:30 p.m. but it took until 2 p.m. until they reached our home and rescued us. [Prior to the arrival of the IDF, the kibbutz’s civilian defense team engaged in a gun battle with the terrorists and succeeded in killing some of them].

“When we heard [the IDF soldiers’] shouts in Hebrew, my wife signaled to them,” Uriel continued. “They knew to look for us because we were in touch (via Whatsapp) with whomever we could think of. But even then – the incident wasn’t over. We heard screaming in Arabic and a gun battle took place right there in front of our window. We couldn’t leave until they cleared the area of terrorists. And that was the point where we fell apart and began weeping.”

B’Chasdei Hashem, the baby made a full recovery from the horrifying ordeal.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)