By — Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin By — Sarah Cutler, Columbia Journalism Fellow Sarah Cutler, Columbia Journalism Fellow By — Sonia Kopelev Sonia Kopelev Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/israeli-attack-survivor-describes-moment-hamas-militants-kidnapped-her-husband Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Audio One facet of Saturday's Hamas attacks in Israel never seen before on this scale is the taking of civilian hostages. Dozens of men, women, children and the elderly were reportedly kidnapped and forcibly taken to Gaza. Their locations within the densely packed enclave are unknown. Nick Schifrin spoke with two women now enduring the horror of missing loved ones. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. Amna Nawaz: One facet of Saturday's attacks never seen before on this scale, the taking of hostages by Hamas, men, women, children and the elderly, dozens, reportedly, kidnapped and forcibly taken to Gaza, their locations within the densely packed enclave unknown.And, tonight, Hamas is threatening to execute them if Israel targets civilian homes without advanced warning.Nick Schifrin spoke with two women now enduring the horror of missing loved ones. Nick Schifrin: One month ago, Shaylee Atary and Yahav Winner celebrated their newborn, Shaya. On Saturday, the family was torn apart.Shaylee Atary, Wife of Missing Israeli: In the early morning, the — I was awake. I was supposed to give her food.When we heard the first bombing in my kibbutz, Kfar Aza, I thought it's a regular bombing we have, like, each couple of months there, but then we understand it's bigger. And then, after 15 minutes, we heard shootings. And then people are voicing, saying (speaking foreign language) which is like "Come, come" in Arabic.So, three minutes after that, we heard them outside of our bedroom. They just opened the window and put their hand inside my bedroom. But my husband, before, when we heard them, we had a signal that said, you are keeping the door. I'm with the child.When they put their hand to open the window, he pushed them to the other sign and gave me a look to go away. So I took my daughter, 1-month-old daughter, with no shoes, no phone. My husband was left with there with a lot of people that want to kill him probably.And I ran away. I ran, but inside of bushes, so they won't see me. They were shooting at me and my daughter. We hid inside the shed of our (inaudible) and I heard voices near. So I took things like bowls you put flowers in, and I put the empty ones, and I put them on me and Shaya with buckets of sand for the garden.And I hide behind a washing machine. But then, after a while that, I had Shaya all the time. She was sleeping. But then inside the shed, she started crying after a while. So, then it's when I understand that I have to go outside of the shed. But there were much more bombing and shooting over there.But then one family, actually, they saved me. They were the only one who opened. They had a camera around the house. And they could see I'm not one of them. So they could see I'm with a child. They opened up the house with a child. And we were in that house for 27 hours.They were bombing 27 hours, and they're still bombing now. And there are still families over there and missing people. My husband is missing. So please, if someone sees him, he has a tattoo of a feather, a colored one. He's white. He has brown hair and blue eyes. And I'm looking for him, because we didn't find his bodies.We had a lot of bodies because — and they didn't find him. I don't know. Like, in this time, I quite hope he is kidnapped to Gaza. I know it's like not like a great hope. But if I think of the hours that — that were since the bombing, it's too much time for him to last.So, I hope he was kidnapped, I hope, right? Nick Schifrin: Can you tell me about your husband? Shaylee Atary: He's a good person.We like the quiet. And he always liked the quiet. He's a great filmmaker. And he's a great friend. He was my best friend. We were 10.5 years together. And we waited a long time for this child that we now have, Shaya.So, I hope he will come back and she — will see her. Nick Schifrin: I have an infant daughter at home. I can only imagine how terrifying this has been for you as a new mother. Shaylee Atary: Yes. It was very hard for me to keep Shaya calm and quiet, because, every time she cried, we were getting shootings. And every time Shaya cried, the bombing was doubled, because it felt like — it's like a prize to kill that baby.And every time she cries, they try to kill her. We didn't have nothing to give her to food. We didn't have water. So she had to go to a hospital, because, when she came, the baby was apathic (ph). She was white, and she had to take oxygen. Nick Schifrin: So, that whole time, you had no formula to give Shaya? Shaylee Atary: No.She came after 27 hours of not eating. The hospital wrote that she had — she was so dehydrated that she cried with no drops. Nick Schifrin: No tears. Shaylee Atary: Yes, tears. Nick Schifrin: At the same time, 20 miles away, Hamas gunmen were also going house to house in Nir Oz.They kidnapped five members of the same family, 80-year-old Carmela Dan, her son-in-law, Ofer Kalderon, and her three teenage grandchildren, Sahar, Noya, and Erez.Abbey Onn is their cousin.Abbey Onn, Cousin of Missing Israeli Family: We know that the next few hours were horrifying there, that Hamas burned the majority of the kibbutz and slaughtered most of the people there, that the people who survived were taken hostage.What we understand one day after was that we got a video of my 12-year-old cousin being held hostage by Hamas, and we believe that he is in Gaza. Nick Schifrin: The Israeli Foreign Ministry just a few hours ago said, at least publicly, there is no intention to negotiate for the release of Israelis being held hostage inside Gaza.Do you want them to negotiate? Abbey Onn: I want them to do whatever it takes to get them home.Home is now a hard concept for Shaylee. Her house has been burned. Her faith comes from her daughter.How is she doing now? Shaylee Atary: She's good. She's strong. She's a strong kid. She's good. Her color came back. She started eating last night. So, she's now OK.She is giving me faith. And I feel that Yahav is not dead. This is what I feel. They didn't find his body. And I can feel his soul is not talking to me as if he's dying, as if he's not in this world. I feel he's like sending me messages of like, you fool, don't cry, I'm here.But I still cry. Nick Schifrin: And we're thinking about you and praying for you and your family. Shaylee Atary: Thank you so much. Listen to this Segment Watch Watch the Full Episode PBS NewsHour from Oct 09, 2023 By — Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin is PBS NewsHour’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Correspondent. He leads NewsHour’s daily foreign coverage, including multiple trips to Ukraine since the full-scale invasion, and has created weeklong series for the NewsHour from nearly a dozen countries. The PBS NewsHour series “Inside Putin’s Russia” won a 2017 Peabody Award and the National Press Club’s Edwin M. Hood Award for Diplomatic Correspondence. In 2020 Schifrin received the American Academy of Diplomacy’s Arthur Ross Media Award for Distinguished Reporting and Analysis of Foreign Affairs. He was a member of the NewsHour teams awarded a 2021 Peabody for coverage of COVID-19, and a 2023 duPont Columbia Award for coverage of Afghanistan and Ukraine. Prior to PBS NewsHour, Schifrin was Al Jazeera America's Middle East correspondent. He led the channel’s coverage of the 2014 war in Gaza; reported on the Syrian war from Syria's Turkish, Lebanese and Jordanian borders; and covered the annexation of Crimea. He won an Overseas Press Club award for his Gaza coverage and a National Headliners Award for his Ukraine coverage. From 2008-2012, Schifrin served as the ABC News correspondent in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 2011 he was one of the first journalists to arrive in Abbottabad, Pakistan, after Osama bin Laden’s death and delivered one of the year’s biggest exclusives: the first video from inside bin Laden’s compound. His reporting helped ABC News win an Edward R. Murrow award for its bin Laden coverage. Schifrin is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a board member of the Overseas Press Club Foundation. He has a Bachelor’s degree from Columbia University and a Master of International Public Policy degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). @nickschifrin By — Sarah Cutler, Columbia Journalism Fellow Sarah Cutler, Columbia Journalism Fellow By — Sonia Kopelev Sonia Kopelev