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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
World
Ryan Fahey

Daughter's missed call will haunt me says dad after his wife and kids are shot dead

The dad who lost his daughters and wife in a drive-by shooting in the occupied West Bank says he will be "haunted" after missing a call from his girls just moments before the heinous attack happened.

Rabbi Leo Dee, who quit his job as a banker in the UK to settle in the Palestinian region with his family, has spoken out several times after the tragedy tore his world apart on Friday.

His daughters Maia, 20, and Rina, 16, and his wife Lucy, were driving through the Hamra settlement when a gunman peeled off shots from an AK-47 into their car.

Both daughters were killed at the scene. Lucy was airlifted to hospital after being hit with two bullets - one in her brain stem and another lodged at the top of her spine.

Leo and his wife Lucy (Facebook)

A funeral was held for Lucy today in which Leo and his family spoke of their loss.

Before the service, Leo explained how he'll be haunted by not speaking to his daughter just minutes before her death.

He wept as he recalled receiving a call from his sister to tell him a vehicle in the area had been attacked.

He called them, but she didn't answer.

“Then I saw a missed call from Maia 10.52am,” he said.

“I hadn’t noticed it ring and had not picked up the phone. The feeling that she called me during the attack and I wasn’t able to speak to her will come back and haunt me for a while.”

Leo Dee and his family speak of their loss at the funeral of Lucy Dee today (xxxxxxxxxxx)

Tali, Dee's other daughter, was in the car with him at the time. She saw a photo on Instagram of a bullet-riddled car containing blood-soaked suitcases.

He immediately knew "the suitcases were ours".

After realising his family were in trouble, he hit the pedal and "drove like a lunatic" to the scene.

“By this point we knew that two younger girls had been killed by a terrorist with an automatic Kalashnikov rifle… and the older woman had been airlifted to Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem.

“I wanted to go to be with Lucy in the hospital but we couldn’t believe that this was our car, our family. So I wanted to see the girls, or at least the car for myself.

“After what seemed like a lifetime (it was actually three lifetimes) I convinced them to bring us an ID card that they had rescued from the scene. It was Maia’s.

“I went numb. I didn’t cry yet. I was highly rational. I went back to the car and drove another hour and a half to the hospital.”

In his speech, which he used to broach a number of political subjects, he made an emotional defence of Israel.

He also called for an "international Dees day" for the world to remember his killed family.

Rina and Maia's funeral (AFP via Getty Images)

In another statement, he spoke of the deaths, saying saying his family of seven has now become a family of four.

He also criticised the gunman saying he is the "product of a broken culture", as he said: "This anonymous terrorist with a Kalashnikov, what did he achieve, temporary victory? Where's his future? Is he spending time with his children, to teach them decent life values? Does he even have children or is he a child himself?

"Is he the product of a broken culture that doesn't differentiate between good and evil so he doesn't see a future for himself?"

At a funeral service for his daughters on Sunday, Mr Dee said he hopes their memory will be kept alive.

The family also decided to donate Mrs Dee's organs in the hope they can save the lives of others.

Friday's shooting came amid tensions in the West Bank, with new Palestinian armed groups emerging and challenging the Israeli occupation.

Israel captured the West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war. Since then, it has built dozens of settlements in the territory that are now home to more than 500,000 Jewish settlers.

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