A Bay Area-born woman was among those brutally murdered in Israel while trying to escape a music festival under attack by Hamas terrorists Saturday, according to her family.
Danielle Waldman, 24, was killed along with her boyfriend of six years, Noam Shay, her father Eyal Waldman said.
Waldman is the founder of a Silicon Valley tech company called Mellanox. He moved out of the U.S. in 2021 and now lives in Israel.
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“Danielle was born in Palo Alto, California,” he said. “It’s a heartbreaking devastation, this is not a sorrow. This is something you understand will be with you for the rest of your life.”
Waldman was in Indonesia a week ago, when received calls telling him there was an attack on the south district of Israel. He knew Danielle and Noam were at the festival in that area.
He said, initially, the couple sent a message saying they were OK. But about 35 minutes later, Waldman says the family received an emergency accident call with a location of Danielle’s phone.
Waldman hopped on a plane back to Tel Aviv. He sought the help of an Israeli army general to take him inside a danger zone, determined to find his daughter.
Waldman eventually found the couple’s bullet-riddled car near the location where Danielle's phone pinged.
“They went south, not north because I think the north side was blocked, and then we seen three shells or trails of Kalashnikov shells in the back of the car,” Waldman said. “They had been shot from the back by probably three inhumane people.”
“My small daughter was there,” Waldman said as his voice broke. “I could not stay at home knowing that my small daughter is under attack.”
Danielle and Noam’s bodies were gone. A couple of days later, Waldman and his family would get the tragic confirmation. The couple’s bodies were among the thousand plus that were brought back from the south of the country and identified.
“It had two aspects, the first was a disaster,” said Waldman. “Our lives, everything about our lives, just changed and will change. At the same time it was a relief because I know I can stop looking for my daughter and being afraid that she’s hostage by those barbaric, inhumane creatures.”
Danielle and Noam met in the Israeli army. They lived together and had a dog. Waldman said they had just begun talking about marriage.
Now, the couple are buried next to each other, the family said. Though difficult, Waldman chooses to remember his free-spirited daughter the way she lived: a young woman with a zest for life and all the living beings in it.
“Danielle loved to dance,” he said. “She danced in every opportunity that she could and Noam joined her. Danielle was the light of the family, Danielle was smiling and was loved by everybody. Danielle loved everything.”
Waldman said it was necessary to share his daughter’s story because of the atrocities happening in the region. Among his hopes, he wants all Israeli hostages to be released.
“We must make sure the message is clear: This will never happen again. We must come even with the people that have done this. We cannot leave this unresolved.”
Waldman said, at the same time, he wants to live in peace with his neighbors.
“We want to stop killing each other,” he said. “We want to stop making this grief, sorrow, loss — from both sides. The Palestinian side and the Israeli side.”
