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Monday, April 29, 2019

Girl shot in synagogue attack says 'he was aiming at the kids'

Noya is just 8 years old. But Saturday's synagogue shooting was already the third time she has had to flee targeted attacks.
She was playing with other children inside the synagogue in Poway, California, when a gunman took aim and fired a hail of bullets into the congregation.
Shrapnel hit Noya Dahan in her face and her leg.
"I don't even have any words for it. It was terrifying. Scary." Noya told CNN. "We go to pray and then we're supposed to, like, supposed to feel safe."
But at the service to celebrate the end of Passover, no one was safe. Police say a 19-year-old suspect entered the synagogue in the town north of San Diego and opened fire.
A woman there to honor her late mother was killed. The rabbi held up his hands as he faced the gunman. At least one of his fingers was blown off as bullets smashed into both hands.
And there was Noya. "He was aiming right at us. He was aiming at the kids," she said.
Noya's uncle Almog Peretz was hit in the leg. Shrapnel from that is believed to have hit Noya, passing through her right leg. Shrapnel also hit her face.
Almog Peretz was trying to protect Noya, his niece, from the gunman.
Noya moved to the United States from Israel after rocket attacks on their family home in Sderot.
Her father, Israel Dahan, said he moved his family to Mira Mesa, also north of San Diego, to be safe.
But anti-Semitism showed up in their neighborhood.
Opinion: Three ways to stop the hate killings
Dahan says they came outside one night in 2015 to find their power cut and swastikas drawn on their garage and their car.
They were terrified. "We were sleeping in a locked bedroom with knives and with baseball pole because that is the only way I can protect my family," Dahan said.
They moved again, a few miles to Poway, encouraged and welcomed by Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein and the community.
And then hate shattered their lives once again.
"He came to kill us. He came to grind us. The amount of bullets he had on him. He came to destroy this place," Dahan said of the attacker. "He was covered in magazines. They were all over his body."
Noya's father Israel Dahan doesn't know where his family will be safe.
As the Dahans mourn the loss of family friend Lori Kaye, they are again reflecting on the impact of hate.
"It's just dangerous and it hurts when it happens. You can lose family members. It can tear your family apart," Noya said.
She seems mature beyond her years but she has already experienced more fear in her life than most.
In the past 6 weeks, churches, mosques and a synagogue have been attacked
"I'm feeling scared and unsafe, like someone always behind us and watching us," she said.
Her father is distraught because he can't make his children feel 100% safe.
His instinct is move his wife and his five children again. The problem is he can't think of anywhere to go to escape hatred.
"I might need to run again and I need to prepare myself for the next run," he said.
"It is horrible, yeah, but that's the way we live."

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from CNN.com - RSS Channel https://cnn.it/2We8oOa

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