Terror victim's father says two centimeters saved his daughter's life

"A terrorist in your home is everyone's nightmare," Yisrael Glick says after assailant shoots his 9-year-old daughter.

By TOVAH LAZAROFF
Yisrael Glick, father of injured girl 370 (photo credit: TOVAH LAZAROFF)
Yisrael Glick, father of injured girl 370
(photo credit: TOVAH LAZAROFF)
The life of Noam, 9, was saved because the bullet that hit her on Saturday night didn't move two centimeters to the left or the right, her father Yisrael Glick told reporters as he described the terror attack in his Psagot settlement home.
"It was a miracle," he said as he stood on Sunday morning in the hallway outside the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit in the Sha'are Tzedek Hospital in Jerusalem, where his daughter is being treated.
Noam had stumbled upon a man, believed to be a Palestinian terrorist, as he was about to break into her home. He shot her from one meter away and fled.
"When you are shot at from one meter away, typically you are seriously injured," Glick said. But his daughter is in stable condition and was not seriously harmed.
As he spoke to reporters, Glick pointed with his hand to the spot on the shoulder, near the neck, where his daughter was wounded.
"A difference of two centimeters here or there and we wouldn't be giving thanks," said Glick as he moved his hand to his throat, to show where the bullet might have hit Noam.
"We believe we received a new lease on Noam's life and the life of our family's," Glick said as he smiled in gratitude.
He, his wife, and five children, live in the last home on their street, on the edge of their West Bank hilltop community which overlooks the Palestinian city of Ramallah.
There is nothing but rocks, thorns, brush and trees between the Glick home and the two tiered security barrier for the settlement that includes an outer ring of barbed wire and an inner metal fence.
On Sunday afternoon, Psagot spokesman who had yet to sleep since the night before, showed The Jerusalem Post the spot where the terrorist cut through both the barbed wire and the fence. Both security barriers have since been fixed.
The terrorist then climbed up the steep rocky hillside and onto the porch of the Glick's two stone story home, where the back door is adorned with photographs of their children celebrating the Sukkot holiday that just passed.
Around 9:20 p.m. on Saturday night Noam returned home from a Bnei Akiva event. She walked by her front yard, which was littered with bicycles and a tricycle. As she started to descend the outside back stairwell, she saw a figure on the bottom landing with a masked face and eyes that peered out into the darkness, her father said.
"At first it went through her head that maybe this was a guest, but then she understood that it was not," Glick said.
Based on his daughter's description, Glick said, the man saw Noam, stood a meter away, aimed his gun and fired three shots.
Noam later told her father, "Abba [father] he aimed a gun at me and then there were three [explosions], bomb, bomb, bomb."
Then she yelled, "'Save me!' as loud as she could," Glick said. He added that he believes her scream scared the man and caused him to flee.
At the time, Glick said, he was in the living room and his wife was putting their four other younger children to bed.
He said he heard three unusual loud explosions, followed by "a scream like I have never heard before in my life."
At times, he said, they heard gunfire from celebrations in Ramallah, but this sounded different, Glick said.
He went outside to see what had happened and found his daughter on the stairwell that led down to their back porch.
"'Abba,' she said. I answered, 'Noam what is the problem, come inside.' She stood as if she had been turned to stone. I came close to her and said, 'Noam what is happening.' She pointed to the stairwell and said, 'there is an Arab down there,'" Glick recalled.
"I understood that I had entered a nightmare. A terrorist in your home is everyone's nightmare," Glick said.
Immediately, he grabbed Noam, pushed her inside, grabbed his gun and searched to make sure the terrorist had not entered their home or was still outside.
He then called the settlement's emergency response team, of which he is a member.
For a second he imagined he would be a responder to the attack on the settlement, but that image was shattered by his wife who called him to come quickly into the living room, where Noam now was.
"I looked at Noam and suddenly for the first time, I see that she has a hole in her shoulder. I realize it is a bullet hole," Glick said.
It seemed, he added that within minutes, paramedics were in his home and they were on their way to the hospital.
In retrospect, Glick said, she saved his family and other in the settlement from harm, because she drew the terrorist's attention to her.
"Instead of dealing with us, he dealt with her," Glick said.
"Her scream saved her and us. She was a hero."