Segev-Vigder was reportedly killed while shielding her 9-month-old son, Ari, who survived the attack. Just hours before the shooting, she posted a prayer on Instagram for the safety of Israeli soldiers entering Lebanon.
“I spoke to her minutes before the attack. I knew she was on her way home, and when I heard about the shooting, I called her, but she didn’t answer,” Her husband Yeari told Ynet. “I started looking for her. She was with our baby, Ari, and our dog. When I reached the scene and found our dog shot, I feared the worst.”
Yeari eventually found his son, unharmed, at Wolfson Medical Center in the children’s ward. “He was safe, not a scratch on him, because he was strapped to her in the baby carrier. That’s our miracle,” he said. “After hours of searching, the police came to inform me that she was killed. She was an amazing person, a wonderful mother who gave everything to Ari and to me.”
A witness to the attack recounted seeing Segev-Vigder holding her baby in a carrier before she was shot. “A man came to help, and then we heard the baby scream. We pulled him from the carrier and got him off the train,” she said. “A police officer took me and the baby to Wolfson in a patrol car. I kept asking about the mother, but they told me to focus on the baby.”
Another survivor, 22-year-old Arik Marchenkov, who was shot twice in the back, described the powerful image of the mother cradling her baby as she bled. “It’s a miracle the baby survived, with all the bullets flying. The mother took the hits, and he was left unharmed,” he said.
Shahar Goldman, another victim, had been married just over a year. Her mother, a well-known educator in Lod, and her sister Meirav, a musician with the Berlin Philharmonic, were devastated by the news. Meirav, who received the heartbreaking update in Germany, is en route to Israel.
Lod Mayor Yair Revivo paid tribute to Goldman, calling her “an international Latin dancer and an amazing woman from a remarkable family.” He added, “This is not how we wanted to end the year. Shachar was brutally murdered in cold blood by vile terrorists. Our welfare teams are supporting the family, and we will stand by them through this tragedy.”
The Jaffa attack claimed the lives of seven people and injured 15 others. An IDF soldier was among those critically wounded. The attackers, identified as Mehmed Khalaf Saher Rajab and Hassan Mohammed Hassan Tamimi, both from the West Bank city of Hebron, were in Israel illegally and were killed at the scene by light rail security guards and municipal emergency units, with the help of police and civilians. Following the attack, the IDF imposed a closure on Hebron.
Initial investigations revealed that one of the attackers was armed with an M-16 rifle, while the other carried a knife. They opened fire on passengers aboard the light rail before shooting at pedestrians on the street. The wounded were taken to Wolfson Medical Center in Holon and Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv.
Paramedic Eran Nissan, who lives next to the scene of the attack, rushed to aid the victims. While treating a woman shot in the arm, more gunfire erupted. “We dragged her to a back room and blocked the door,” he said. “Others were with us, but I focused on treating her, and she remained conscious the whole time.” Nissan later helped load her into an ambulance, hoping she survived.