Despite the murder of his youngest daughter on October 7 by Hamas, Israeli tech-billionaire Eyal Waldman, the founder of Waldo Holdings and the former president and CEO of Mellanox, told the BBC this week that he believes in the possibility of a near-future two-state solution.
Waldman’s daughter, Danielle, was murdered along with her boyfriend, Noam, and their friends as they attempted to flee from the site of the Nova music festival in Re’im.
"She was an amazing girl," Waldman told the British broadcaster. "She loved to dance. She loved animals. She loved people. She had many, many friends. She loved to snowboard, to scuba dive, to go on a motorcycle with Noam."
In a video published by the BBC that Waldman describes as taking place several minutes before they were murdered, Danielle can be seen in the backseat of a car next to two others. At the end of the clip, the driver, reportedly Noam, shouts, “Left or right?”
According to the BBC, as soon as Waldman heard his daughter was missing, he rushed back home to Israel from a trip to Indonesia, getting permission to land despite the country’s closed airspace, and immediately began searching for her by tracking her Apple watch.
"We were close to an engagement with seven terrorists, creatures, call them what you want," the BBC quotes him as saying. "They had killed three or four soldiers. After that we took three officers in a jeep and went down south."
The car was subsequently located peppered with bullet holes and stained with blood.
"There was a lot of blood inside the car," Waldman continued. "I was hoping she wasn't in the car, or that she was wounded but was able to escape, or was taken hostage."
Danielle’s body wasn’t found for another two days.
Waldman's philanthropy for Palestinians
Waldman, however, told the BBC that he does not regret his past philanthropy for Palestinians, aid that included the opening of a design center in Gaza, a $360,000 donation to build a hospital in the Strip, and the creation of jobs for both Gazan and West Bank Palestinians.
The tech-billionaire also maintains his hope for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the near future.
"We need to change leadership on both sides,” he said. “And then I hope in two to four years we'll be able to [make] peace and build two states for the two people and be able to live together next to each other."
The solution though, he said, has to come after justice for the October 7 massacre is served.
"Anyone that was responsible, anyone that was associated with what happened on 7 October 2023, will be eliminated. And we will take care of that," he told the BBC. "We know exactly who came, who raped, who butchered. We have videos, we have their cell phone numbers. We know who they are. We can eliminate them. And I think we can eliminate Hamas."