SMOKED OUT
Hamas terrorists set our house on fire… we thought we were going to die as smoke came in under the door
A BRITISH family spent six hours locked in a smoke-filled room during the Hamas attacks on Israel, as terrorists set their home on fire.
Two young parents, a ten-day old baby and a grandmother thought they were going to die when Hamas militants raided their home.
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Deborah Mintz, whose daughter was sleeping in a safe room with her husband and baby, opened up to Piers Morgan on TalkTV about the horrific experience.
"We were woken up about 6, 6.30. There was a red siren alert.
"My daughter and her husband and the baby were sleeping in the secure room, a bunker I suppose with a steel door.
"She screamed at me 'Mum, mum, come there's a siren'."
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Deborah, from Romford, rushed to join her family in the bunker as they hunkered down.
She said that after about an hour, they heard gunfire outside and realised they were under attack.
When her daughter checked out the footage from her security cameras, she made a chilling realisation.
"Mum, mum, the terrorists are in the house, they've entered the house," Deborah recalls her daughter crying out.
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The safe room the family were hiding in, designed to protect from rockets, was a concrete reinforced bunker with a steel door and window.
And it didn't lock from the inside.
Deborah's daughter, Aimee Labban and her son-in-law Uriel Labban "with all their might", kept the handle of the steel door upright.
When the terrorists couldn't force the door open, Deborah said they began shooting at it before setting fire to the house.
When smoke started coming in under the door, she said: "We knew we were not going to survive."
For the next six hours the family bravely waited until they thought the terrorists had gone and opened the window.
They would hold the baby up, and take turns getting some fresh air before closing it again if the militants were nearby.
The grandmother recalled "the room was completely filled with smoke, thick, black soot.
She added during this time the worst thing was hearing the little dog “scream, scream as she burnt to death.”
She added: “I pretty much gave up after that but for the sake of the baby you try.”
After hours in the smoke-filled safe room, Deborah said the family heard someone call their name and the army pulled them from the window.
They were taken to an underground shelter where they said people shared horrible stories of their own traumatic experiences.
The Israeli army then took them to a hospital where they recovered, and have since been released.
Her daughter added she didn’t know how they had all survived, including the ten day old infant, but they had acted on instincts.
Hamas terrorists launched an all-out attack on Israel from land, air and sea with 5,000 rockets fired during the early hours of Saturday morning.
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It was the deadliest assault in the country's 75-year history and has sparked days of bloody strikes and assaults.
So far, at least 900 people have been killed in Israel while almost 700 are confirmed dead in Gaza - with the death toll set to soar on both sides.
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