Mom’s Anguish: “My Heart is Dead” After Daughter’s Murder by Hamas Terrorists

Mother, full-time student and teacher, Hannie Ricardo, woke up in the middle of the night to a devastating phone call in her UES apartment–her daughter was missing.

She checked her phone and saw that her daughter–Oriya– had sent her a text, “Mom, I love you very much.” The last text her daughter would ever send.

“It sounded like a goodbye,” said Ricardo in an interview with Straus News from Israel

Ricardo took the next available flight to Israel after the heartbreaking call, not caring that she had just signed a lease for a new apartment and was in the middle of a semester at Hunter College. She arrived on Oct. 9 and immediately “went to the center where you’re informed of missing people” and gave DNA samples to the authorities.

American and Israeli music-lovers alike were dancing near Kibbutz, Re’im, Israel–three miles from the Gaza Strip border–enjoying a sunny early morning at the festival, when abruptly the music turned off and the loudspeaker stated, “Guys, red alert, regroup,” as reported by NDTV World News.

Soon after rockets shot out and exploded in the sky, one of the first indicators that something was amiss. Later, gunmen in pickup trucks arrived. From then, all hell broke loose.

Partygoers ran every which way, attempting to find shelter in the desert.

“For 24 hours I was waiting for my daughter to call me back,” Ricardo said. “As the hours went by my messages were talking to the air, expressing my depression...The next day we got the message that she’s dead. She was shot dead by the Hamas.”

Out of the thousands of people at the festival Ricardo said, “40 kids, 300 under eighteen, and a few hundreds of 20-30 year olds [died] that just went to dance...Some miraculously survived who hid under bodies.” Many are still missing and were taken as hostages.

Oriya’s boyfriend found her body at the site of the festival next to an overturned vehicle. “He just couldn’t sit still,” said Ricardo. “He didn’t look for the face, he was just looking for the tattoos...She loved it [tattoos].”

Israel has had a long and complicated relationship with Gaza–to say the least. According to the New York Times, Israel has been worried about the threat that Hamas poses, seeing an invasion as “too dangerous and costly to try.” This, however, did not stop Hamas from “murdering, slaughtering, butchering” more than 1,300 individuals last weekend as Ricardo stated in an interview with Our Town shortly after leaving because she heard missiles. Later, Ricardo clarified that they heard missiles against the Iron Dome that were coming from central Israel.

“It’s not over yet,” she says with a sigh.

The mother described the actions of Hamas militants as “sadistic and beyond cruelty. I don’t think any vocabulary has a word to describe what these inhumane creatures did. The only thing that gets near it is the Nazis, in the Holocaust. Putting people in gas chambers, cutting their heads off, or just shooting them thousands of times everywhere.”

“They killed my girl and she was brave enough to try to run from the car and hide, but they got her...Tiny, little beautiful creature. Extremely beautiful.”

Ricardo is currently in Israel, staying with the family of Oriya’s boyfriend.

“The last two hours of her life were horrible, knowing that she’s going to die, but I’m happy, happy isn’t the right word to describe it, but that she didn’t fall into their hands because I don’t know what they would have done to her.”

The family has not held a funeral yet, but are planning to sometime in the days ahead. Ricardo said that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) needed to clear the area of terrorists before they were able to reach the wounded and piles of bodies in the area. “After there were people who went to pick up the dead. They were extremely busy.”

Ricardo goes on to say, “They raped, assaulted other young women, beheaded 40 kids, killed families one by one and let the rest of the family see how they executed the kids...Monsters is a nice word to describe them. We need to come up with a new word because they raised the bar.”

The last time that Ricardo got to see her daughter in person was two years ago in Israel. They had spoken over the phone on Friday, making plans for when Oriya was going to visit New York and see Ricardo’s new apartment. “I said that I wanted her to be the first guest in my house. She’s not going to do that.”

“I will have to live with this pain for the rest of my life...She was the sunshine of my life...My heart is dead. I’m still living but my heart is dead...I don’t know how to go on from here.”

Ricardo’s last comments were, “I salute President Biden for his speech. I salute the mayor of New York for his speech, but where are the people? These murders will not stop with only Jewish people or Israelis. They will go after every person that just feel[s] like killing..That’s what I say to America. Stop supporting terror. Stop boycotting Israel and start boycotting Hamas and all other terrorist supporters. That’s my message.”