Mom from Missouri dies shielding teen son from Hamas shooters in Israel, dad says
A 50-year-old mother with ties to Missouri was among the American citizens killed in Israel during the first day of attacks by Hamas militants, her family says.
Deborah Matias, who is reportedly from Boone County, Missouri, died along with her husband as they shielded their 16-year-old son from the gunfire on Saturday, Oct. 7.
“My grandson has witnessed the murder of his mother by people who rehearsed what they were doing,” Ilan Troen, a professor of Israel studies at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, told WBZ-TV.
The Matias family, which lived in Be’er Sheva, only had about 45 seconds of warning to get to safety after being alerted of a missile attack by Hamas forces, the family said in a statement to The Boston Globe.
Troen said in an interview with Scripps News he was on the phone with his daughter, who told him they were attempting to lock their home and safe room as the unprecedented attacks began.
She reported glass being shattered in her home, and Troen said that was the last he heard from his daughter, according to NBC10 Boston.
“The next we heard was from her son, saying … they’re dead,” Troen told NBC10. “And we learned that he was lying under her and was covered in part by his parents’ blood, and that he himself had been wounded.”
Matias’ 16-year-old son, Rotem, hid under a bed and later a blanket for the next 12 hours, Scripps News reported.
He had been shot in the abdomen but was eventually rescued and is recovering from his injuries, according to WBZ.
“The brunt of the shot was borne by his mother,” Troen told CNN. “The terrorists who came, they had explosives and blew up the front door to their house and then blew out the front door to their so-called safe room.”
Matias and her husband, Shlomi Matias, met at the Rimon School of Music in the Tel Aviv area, CNN reported. Troen did not say when his daughter moved from Boone County, about 130 miles northwest of St. Louis.
The couple had two other children, NBC10 reported. They no longer live at home and survived the initial attacks.
“(Deborah and Shlomi) loved music, life, each other, their kids,” Troen told WBZ. “I would ask (Rotem) to think of the joy that they sought and had in their lives rather than the focus on that day.”
U.S. President Joe Biden said in a Monday statement at least 11 American citizens have been killed in the assault on Israel.
“It’s heart wrenching. These families have been torn apart by inexcusable hatred and violence,” Biden said. “We also know that American citizens still remain unaccounted for, and we are working with Israeli officials to obtain more information as to their whereabouts.”
More than 1,500 people were killed during the first three days of the war, CBS News reported. Of the 900 Israeli victims, most were civilians.
US aircraft carrier sent toward Israel is world’s largest warship. What can it do?
