"This is Holocaust": Lexington woman's ex-husband, his brother killed in Israel
LEXINGTON - Liat Wachs was celebrating the Jewish holiday of Sukkot when she heard about the atrocities unfolding in Israel on Saturday. The Lexington woman thought about calling her ex-husband Igal Wachs, the father of her 11-year-old son, Jonathan, but decided to wait.
Then, Liat got a call from her brother that still leaves her numb. Igal and his brother Amit were both killed by Hamas.
"Less than an hour after my brother calls me and gives me the most horrifying message. He just told me a sentence. It was, 'There is war in Israel, terrorists came from Gaza into Netiv HaAsara and Igal and his brother Amit were killed.' This is how I got the message on Saturday morning," Liat said.
Liat says she collapsed and was brought outside by her mother and cousins. She did not want her son to see her sobbing.
"Igal and his brother were part of the security team, the patrol team in the village. We call it Moshav, the village in Israel, and they were probably notified that there were terrorists," she said, "And I'm quite sure they got an alert and they went out to fight them."
Liat says Igal and Amit were both dual Israeli-American citizens and may be counted among the 14 Americans known to have been killed in the violence perpetrated by Hamas.
Now, Liat says she still feels numb, and she wants the world to pay attention to her stories and the stories of other Israelis.
"Heads were taken off. Babies were taken into the Gaza Strip. Grandmother with Alzheimer's, didn't have her medicine, were taken hostage. How can someone do something like that? My husband was murdered trying to defend and my son doesn't have a father," she said. "It's horrible. This is Holocaust what happened."