The bodies of an Israeli father and his 16-year-old disabled daughter were finally found 12 days after they were slaughtered by Hamas terrorists who attacked a music festival, Israel confirmed.
Erick Peretz and his daughter Ruth – who was wheelchair-bound with cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy — were located by volunteers on Wednesday at the site of the Supernova Sukkot Gathering near the Re’im Kibbutz, where at least 260 Israelis were massacred, according to officials and local reports.
They were “brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists,” Israel wrote on its official X account.
“[My father] was really happy, and everything was fine,” his older daughter Yaarit Peretz, 26, told Israeli outlet Ynet on Monday.
“For years he goes to these parties and takes Ruth, because it makes her really good and she loves it. There were times when he would take her and she didn’t want to come back,” she said.
Yaarit Peretz said she had last spoken with her father on the phone the morning of Oct. 7 — now known in Israel as “Black Saturday” — after Hamas launched its unprecedented attack.
“He said that they barely had reception, and he didn’t know where to go,” she said. “He said that almost everyone ran away, and I told him that there were terrorists on the streets.”
She was particularly concerned about the survival of her sister Ruth, who needed to be fed through her stomach and other medical care. She is also mostly nonverbal, only able to say a few words, she said.
“I find it hard to believe that she will survive in Gaza,” Yaarit Peretz ominously said at the time.
For days, the Peretz family helplessly wondered whether the pair were killed or had been kidnapped. Yaarit Peretz said she’d heard reports that Erick was seen running away with Ruth in his arms but was unable to confirm any information and still had not heard from them.
“It’s crazy that so much time has passed and there are still no answers,” she said before finally learning their fate on Wednesday.