Kipnis family
Realizing that terrorists had infiltrated the kibbutz, 69-year-old Amir Weiss entered the safe room with his wife, Mati. He loads his gun and waits for their arrival. The gun didn't help him when the terrorists entered the house and shot them dead through the safe room door. “I think we're saying goodbye,” she told her son in their last call
Amir and Mati Weiss
Click on the points on the timeline for a real-time tour. Clicking on the icons will display the event documentation.
When the alarms sound in the kibbutz, Amir and Mati enter the safe room
Updates about the terrorists infiltrating the kibbutz spread through the community groups. Amir takes his gun and load it.
Mati updates her family: "I hear yelling outside the house. They are yelling in Arabic. Dad is sitting with his gun."
Terrorists infiltrate the family house. Amir holds the safe room door with one hand and the gun with the other. Mati calls her son Yuval, a member of the kibbutz security squad, and asks for urgent assistance. Yuval, who is fighting in the kibbutz at that moment, replies to his mother that he has reported this to the army and hopes that a force will arrive at their house soon.
The terrorists arrive at the safe room door and shoot the door handle. Amir wounds his hand, and Mati updates the family WhatsApp group that her husband has been shot. In a conversation with her son Yuval, he instructs her to bandage Amir’s wounds. Mati urges her son and adds, "They’ve turned the whole house upside down." Her daughter Michal calls her distraught mother, and she shares with Michal what happened.
Mati writes to her son Yuval that she and Amir are going to die in the safe room and asks, "Where is the army? Why aren’t they coming?" Yuval explains that there are terrorists in other houses as well.
The terrorists place an explosive charge and blow up the safe room door. Mati writes to Yuval that the terrorists are "throwing bombs" and updates him that his father is seriously injured. Yuval asks where Amir was shot, and she replies, "I think he was shot in the heart." She calls Amir to try to keep him conscious and continues texting her son, writing, "They’re throwing grenades at us." Yuval replies, "Be strong." Amir and Mati's house is located at a major intersection in the kibbutz, so many terrorists have taken position in and around it, making it difficult for troops to arrive."
As a result of the recent shots, Mati was wounded in her stomach. She updates Yuval about the injury and tells him that she feels she and Amir are on the verge of death.
Yuval tries to calm his mother down. "Everything will be fine," he tells her. "I don't think so," she replies. "I think we’re saying goodbye," she adds. "Tell everyone we loved them."
Hamas terrorists continued to barricade themselves in the Weiss family house for several hours. At nightfall, IDF forces fired on the house and neutralized the terrorists.
Family members are informed that Amir and Mati have been murdered.
Amir and Mati are laid to rest at the cemetery in Kibbutz Revivim
