The businessman father of an Israeli-American woman who was murdered alongside her boyfriend by Hamas terrorists at a music festival tracked her phone and Apple Watch to find the bullet-riddled car where his daughter met her end while trying to flee to safety.
Eyal Waldman, the founder of Mellanox, a multinational supplier of computer network products, told CNN he initially hoped that his 24-year-old daughter, Danielle Waldman, had been taken captive by the militants during the deadly attack on the Nova Festival in southern Israeli Saturday.
But on Wednesday, just hours before the interview, he learned that both Danielle and Noam Shai, her boyfriend of 6 years, were among some 260 people who were slaughtered in cold blood by terrorists.
Tracking features on Danielle’s phone and Apple Watch eventually led her father and a friend to the car where she was killed by multiple attackers.
“I have seen exactly how she was murdered from two directions by at least three to five people that had attacked it,” he said. “From the shells that we have found, there were at least three guns that were shooting at the car.”
In a separate interview with the Israeli news station i24News, Waldman said his daughter, her boyfriend and two or three other young festival goers had climbed into the white Toyota hatchback in a desperate bid to escape the carnage, but they were cornered by terrorists and executed with AK assault rifles.
“They have done nothing to hurt anyone,” the grieving dad said of the victims.
Danielle, a native of Palo Alto, California, had just moved into a new apartment with her boyfriend and their dog a month ago.
Her father recalled his last conversation with his youngest daughter, in which she had confided in him that she planned to marry Noam. The couple met and fell in love while serving in the Israeli military.
“Each and every one that met her has loved her,” Waldman told CNN. “She’s done nothing wrong and nothing bad to anyone.”
Instead of being wed and spending the rest of their lives together, Danielle and Noam were laid to rest side by side Thursday.