One of the seriously wounded victims of the shooting attack near the Kosel on Motzei Shabbos was Liba Ahuva Schreiber, 37, a mother of eight children, who was shot in the abdomen while in the late stages of pregnancy.

Liba was evacuated to Shaarei Tzedek Hospital in very serious condition. She underwent a series of surgeries, including a C-section to deliver her baby and the removal of some internal organs. Both mother and infant are in serious but stable condition.

Liba and her husband Chaim, 39, were at Kever Dovid that Motzei Shabbos. At about 1:30 a.m, they returned to their car that was parked by the Old City and had just sat down when the vile terrorist arrived at the area and opened fire on the number 3 bus that was parked nearby. After he shot several passengers, he approached their car.

Chaim, who fortunately wasn’t harmed by the terrorist, spoke about those terrifying moments with Ynet. “We heard six shots, the whole incident lasted a total of 40 seconds. There were many people there that we knew and we saw that all the bullets met their mark. He finished shooting and then approached our car. He looked at us with an evil glint in his eye, the expression of a fervent murderer. He was grasping the gun with both hands and seemed skilled, like a real sniper.”

“He stared at us very hard with his eyes and it seemed like he was debating who to shoot – and chose Liba’s stomach. My wife also remembers this. He opened fire and the windshield broke but it didn’t shatter completely. It could be that’s what saved us. If he could have seen through the windshield, he might have shot us again.”

The terrorist then fled the scene without saying a word. “I didn’t understand what happened,” Chaim said. “I didn’t feel anything and I thought the same applied to my wife but then she screamed that she feels blood. The bullet entered her heart area and then exited her body. Miraculously, because she was pregnant and her organs are a little higher – that saved her life.”

Since the attack, Chaim has been running between Liba’s bed in the hospital, his infant son’s incubator in the NICU, and his worried children at home. “When I’m with Liba, the horrible images of this man immediately pop up. Even though I’m so busy, running from one place to another, I find myself copying the identity numbers of taxi drivers and in a state of alert all the time. I haven’t slept or eaten since the attack. My life is a crazy marathon.”

Liba underwent a number of surgeries and is now awake and communicating with him. “Liba is beginning to recover after a very difficult surgery. They had to remove internal organs and she’ll still need another surgery. She said that she can feel the pins in her body.”

“My baby son is fighting for his life. Baruch Hashem, he’s fighting like a lion and Hashem will help that he’ll make it. He needs great yeshuos, Am Yisrael should daven for him. We’re full of hope that this baby will surprise us many more times in life. It looks like we’ll be debating ideas for his name until his bris in another several months.”

The pulic is asked to daven for the refuah sheleimah of:

Liba Ahuva bas Rivka Breindel and her infant, Tinok ben Liba Ahuva.

Yoshua Tzvi ben Sora and his son, HaChassan Baruch Bendit ben Chana Gittel.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)