Local mom shares story of daughter volunteering in Israel as fighting continues

 

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- The eight days of Chanukah concluded Friday night after a heart-breaking day in Israel. Israeli Defense Forces admit they mistakenly shot three Israeli hostages in Gaza. The news is alarming those with loved ones in that targeted area. One local mom shared her family's story with us.

When Marnie Atias put her 19-year-old daughter on a plane this summer headed for Israel, she knew her daughter's absence would be tough. Then, the fighting started and missing her daughter went to a new level.

"But you know every time my phone rings from her, I (sighs) just take a breath and I, that moment of nerves and that moment of I'm scared something's gonna happen, I'm scared she's not ok," said Marnie Atias from Milwaukee.

 Mazi is Marnie's first-born daughter.

"She's determined and she is very smart, and she just knows what she wants," said Marnie Atias.

Mazi Atias graduated from Bader Hillel High School in Glendale this year and hopped on a flight to Israel shortly after that with a plan, volunteer at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem, but return home for a visit in December.

"So, this Sunday is our daughter's bat mitzvah and the original plan she wanted to come back and surprise her, but unfortunately that can't happen right now," said Marnie Atias.

United, Delta and American airlines are not flying to Israel right now. Lufthansa plans to resume flights to Tel Aviv in January.

"I'm just scared and not just for her, for everyone that's there," said Marnie Atias.

The fighting between Hamas and Israel began in October. Schools shut down and Mazi helped care for students.

"But they would take care of them, do fun things with them, activities and pretty much entirely in a bomb shelter," said Marnie Atias.

And life in the pediatric unit where Mazi volunteers at the hospital dramatically changed, too.

"They literally had to move the entire unit from an upper floor to the basement so that if the air sirens went off, they would be close enough, because you only have a certain amount of time, in Jerusalem, I think it's 30 seconds to get to a bomb shelter. She at the beginning of the war was with my husband's family who live in Kiryat Ata which is near Haifa and she, we'd call her, we'd ask what's going on? I'm here, I'm kind of stuck here right now," said Marnie Atias.

Stuck because trains had to cautiously travel through Tel Aviv to get back to Jerusalem.

"It'll stop, something on the track gets disrupted or they have a threat at a station, and they can't go to it, so the train just waits. She told me, she's like mom, I think I can figure out how to get back because they really only bomb Tel Aviv around 8:00 at night. So as long as I'm not you know coming at that point. You start to learn the routine of it, which is sad in and of itself, the fact that there is a routine to it," said Marnie Atias.

As Chanukah comes to an end, the Atias family's holding on to their faith, praying, "Bring Them Home Now" in reference to the Israeli hostages.

"This is only the second time that the sirens have gone off in Jerusalem. A rocket was coming in from Gaza to Jerusalem, but she happens to be at my husband's parents' house and not in Jerusalem this Shabbat, so that was kind of a big breath of relief," said Marnie Atias.

Marnie's father's already got a flight booked to go to Israel in January to see his daughter and he's hoping it won't be cancelled.