"Tomer would say: Every dog has its day" - Tomer Morad's sister after the elimination of the terrorist's father

More than four years after his son murdered Tomer Morad, Barak Lufan, and Eytam Magini in the heart of Tel Aviv, Fathi Hazem, the father of the terrorist Raad Hazem, was eliminated tonight (Friday) in Jenin. According to the IDF, Hazem tried to stab the forces operating in the area and was shot to death. For Tal Morad, Tomer's sister, the news of his elimination does not close a circle. From her perspective, the circle that opened on April 7, 2022, cannot be closed as long as her brother is not here.

In a conversation with Walla, Tal says that minutes before she learned of Hazem's elimination, her mother called her and told her about an unusual dream in which she saw Tomer.

"A moment before I heard, I spoke with my mother and she called to tell me that she dreamed of him. She dreamed that he was wounded in a hospital, and standing next to him was a wounded man in a galabiya. Tomer says to her: 'Mom, don't touch me, I'm wounded'," Tal recounts.

According to her, the dream continued in a way that became especially chilling for the family after it became clear what had happened in Jenin. "She dreams that someone comes to her, an officer from the army, and takes her to Tomer in the hospital. She said to her: 'This cannot be, Tomer is not alive'. And then next to Tomer stands someone with a long white galabiya, wearing a large knitted kippah, hands joined in front of the body, as if he is standing and guarding him. And then Tomer says to her: 'They put him in his place'. After he smiled at her, she woke up. He told her that this man is in his place."

Shortly after that conversation, the news of Fathi Hazem's elimination arrived. However, Tal says that her first thought was not at all about the man who was killed, but about the fighters who operated in the area.

"The first thing I did was to check that none of our forces were injured and that nothing happened, because that is the most important thing," she says. "From what I understand, he tried to stab and then they shot him back. This is the most joyful and relieving thing for us as a family, because if something had happened to the soldiers, to one of them, in my eyes it is not worth anything. Tomer is not with us anymore, and that will not change it. The fact that Tomer is no longer here, that will never change."

Alongside these things, Tal does not hide the feeling of relief that Fathi Hazem is no longer alive. "I am mainly happy that a man with so much hatred, who sows so much hatred, is no longer with us. He would hold rallies and send them on operations, so mainly thank you that this man is no longer with us."

The terror attack in which Tomer was murdered took place on April 7, 2022. Raad Hazem, a resident of the Jenin refugee camp, arrived at Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv and opened fire at revelers. He murdered Barak Lufan, Tomer Morad, and Eytam Magini, and wounded 15 other people. After the shooting, Hazem fled the scene, and at the end of a pursuit that lasted about nine hours, he was located near a mosque in Jaffa.

Two fighters from the Shin Bet operational unit who were patrolling the area identified a person who matched the terrorist's photo. They got out of the vehicle and called him to stop. Hazem raised his hands, but then ran to hide behind a vehicle, pulled out a pistol, and fired ten bullets at them. The forces stormed towards him, returned fire, and eliminated him.

After his son's elimination, Fathi Hazem went outside his home in Jenin and gave a speech in which he spoke about continuing the struggle and about a future victory. Among other things, he told the crowd that gathered there that he hopes they will merit to see "victory," "freedom," and "independence," and called for the liberation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Several months after the terror attack, IDF forces demolished Raad Hazem's apartment in Jenin. During the activity, clashes and exchanges of fire developed between gunmen and the forces. As the fighters were leaving the refugee camp, heavy objects, stones, and Molotov cocktails were thrown at them.

For Tal, all these details are part of a story that, from her perspective, has no end point. When she is asked if Fathi Hazem's elimination closes a circle for her, she bursts into tears. "My circle will never close," she says. "I am happy that he is not there. Our circle will close when we meet Tomer. But it is good that he is not here."

Precisely on the day when the father of the terrorist who murdered her brother was eliminated, Tal asks to clarify that from her perspective, there is nothing in such an elimination to restore the justice that was taken from her family. She also fears the price that the soldiers who are sent to carry out such operations might pay. "No elimination will do justice. It only endangers our soldiers. This is another destroyed family like mine, and it is not worth it. They should not be there, and I wish we could take care of this without endangering our soldiers for the sake of one terrorist who will go and another such family will be destroyed. I choose that this will not happen."

From her perspective, even the elimination of one person does not change the broader reality. "You just think about how different we are from these people, and how they are driven by hatred. And no matter how many generations pass, to my great regret, this will not change. I do not know if the eliminations will change anything, because one goes and another one rises. I just think to myself how bitter our fate is that we are destined to live alongside them."

Since April 7, 2022, she says, there is almost no event of loss in Israel that does not return her to the evening when her brother was murdered. Even four years and four months later, the memory does not need the news about the Hazem family to be awakened again.

"I always return to the terror attack, even in the war. Every face of a child that is smeared on the television returns me to that evening. It is simply a cruel fate," she says.

"Life in the country causes us to see this not as a symbol or as someone specific. Every mother who stands at a funeral, everyone, every sister, every face of a child, with uniforms or without uniforms, everything returns us. We live this. I do not need news to remind me. I am just happy that his father was eliminated and is no longer here."

And when Tal is asked how she thinks Tomer would have reacted if he had heard that the father of the terrorist who murdered him was eliminated, she says: "Tomer would say: 'Every dog has its day'. That is Tomer."

Alongside the memory of her brother, Tal says that from her perspective, the story is bigger than just Tomer's commemoration. She wants him to be remembered, but more than that, she asks to see a reality in which other families will not have to go through what her family went through. "I cannot say that it is not important to me that everyone remembers who Tomer is, so we do things for that. But at the level of the country and the general public, what is most important? The most important thing is that sometime soon a solution will be found that will stop causing us to live like this. But if to tell the truth, as the years pass, I believe that this is the fate of the country - to live like this."

Four years and four months after that evening on Dizengoff, for the Morad family, time has not stopped the longing. Tomer remains present in every memory, in every picture, and in every moment that returns them to the life that was before April 7, 2022. Even this morning, amidst the news from Jenin, Tal returns in the end not to the man who was eliminated, but to the brother she lost: to his smile, to the sentences he would say, and to the hope that one day the pain will be a little less heavy.