"Mama I'm with a client. I'll finish the client and call you."
This was the last thing hairdresser Amneh "Amy" al-Hazouri would ever say to her mother before being fatally shot in the back seat of a car in Sydney's south-west on Saturday night.
The promised call never came.
Instead it was the phone of one of Ms al-Hazouri's siblings which rang with tragic news: "Your sister has been shot."
Police believe Ms al-Hazouri's relationship with her last client, Lametta Fadlallah, may have ultimately cost the 39-year-old her life.
Both women were killed after at least one gunman opened fire through the window of a four-wheel drive outside Ms Fadlallah's Panania home.
Ms al-Hazouri's mother Elham Meliji, who lives in Austria, told the ABC she would speak with her daughter on the phone twice each day.
They often chatted about life in Australia and Ms al-Hazouri's dream of joining family in Austria and opening her own salon.
Ms Meliji said that at the time of her daughter's death, they were also making plans for her engagement party set in November.
Ms al-Hazouri, known as Amy Hazouri to her friends in Sydney, was engaged to a man in Lebanon and had arranged to travel there.
"In the morning I was on a call with her. She told me, 'Mama I'm with a client, let me finish dying her hair'," Ms Meliji said.
"She told me, 'I'll finish the client and call you.' I told her, 'Darling, I have the day off today so I want to talk to sort out the Lebanon travel plan'."
The trip was to be the first time mother and daughter were reunited since 2016.
Ahmed Ghalayni and Ms al-Hazouri met in Lebanon at the start of the pandemic where she got stuck for nine months.
The couple had planned their engagement party in November and were counting down the days.
"In two months it was going to be our engagement, she had gotten her dress, she had gotten everything," Mr Ghalayni said.
When her fiance heard the news of her death he had to be taken to hospital
"I couldn't move my hands or my mouth, praise be to Allah."
Ms al-Hazouri was lonely in Australia and had told her mother she wanted to spend 10 days together "so we can make up for all the days I've lost".
Now the family is pleading for help in returning Ms al-Hazouri's body to Lebanon, to be buried.
The family is distressed because their daughter's funeral has been delayed by several days and in Arabic culture burial usually takes place within 24 hours.
The death of the Bankstown-based hairdresser, who police believe was collateral damage in a targeted hit, has rocked the local community.
A fundraiser has generated $22,000 to pay for a repatriation flight but Ms Meliji said the family needed support from the government to get her daughter home.
"I want my daughter. To receive her body in Lebanon, to bury her and to say goodbye to her," Ms Meliji told the ABC.
"And I'm imploring the government to give me my daughter there. My heart's burning over her."
Mr Ghalayni said "at least we’ll get to see her and I’ll get to feel her".
Ms al-Hazouri and Ms Fadlallah, 48, were sitting in the back of a car when at least a dozen bullets were fired into the vehicle about 8.40pm.
Two people, a 20-year-old man and 16-year-old girl, were in the front but escaped injury.
Senior police believe the shooting was planned and mother-of-two Ms Fadlallah may have been the target.
Her family deny allegations she was involved in Sydney's underworld, but she had known associations to prominent criminal figures through past marriages.
At this stage police haven't found any links between Saturday's shooting and the series of other murders in Sydney attributed to gangland feuds.
What is also known is Ms al-Hazouri was an innocent party whose life was cut short after being caught in the crossfire.
"My daughter was taken in innocence. My daughter was taken unjustly ... mistakenly, and I'm hoping justice will take its course," her mother said.
"I know in [western countries] justice takes its course, unlike Arab countries."
Ms Meliji said she had applied to gain entry to Australia to retrieve the body and is calling on authorities to cut red tape.
Ms al-Hazouri's death has devastated her siblings and extended family, who saw her as a "doting mother for everyone".
"Amy was a fluttering bird. Amy was like a feather. Amy was all the compassion in the universe, not because she's my daughter I swear," her mother said.
"I swear to God ... Amy was so sweet and kind, and emotional. She didn't like violence. She didn't like blood.
"What can I tell you about Amy? No matter what I say, it won't be enough."
