Tragic hero Israeli guard, 19, killed by Hamas after she guns down three terrorists & single-handedly saves her comrades
A BRAVE Israeli guard who was killed by Hamas has been hailed as a hero after she gunned down three terrorists and saved her comrades.
Ravit Hana Assayag, 19, died while trying to save her fellow soldiers and protect a village from Hamas gunmen during their horror attack on Saturday.
The teen officer was shot in the mouth during the attack by a heavily armed gang who stormed the village of Yakhini in Southern Israel.
Ravit killed three of the gunmen but was fatally wounded when she bravely rushed into a wooden shed where the terrorists were hiding.
The 19-year-old guard had just cut short a family holiday to New York so she could return to Israel and join the fight against Hamas.
The terror group ambushed Ravit's settlement, just ten miles from the Gaza border, during their bloody massacre on Saturday morning.
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Her commanding officer hailed the young soldier's bravery during her funeral on Monday night.
Commander Baruch Honig told mourners: "Ravit insisted on going in first. She was killed but she saved the unit, she saved the operation."
"We were in an olive grove and had been fighting for several hours. We shot eight of them. Ravit killed three."
"We thought they were all dead. We did a sweep of the area and Ravit went to check a shed in the olive grove."
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"She insisted on going in first. She asked me to cover her.
"She was shot. But if she had not gone in there, he would have wiped us all out. She saved the unit."
It comes as...
- Israeli troops are massing on the border with Gaza ready to 'execute' as 300,000 ready for a ground invasion
- Horrific details continue to emerge after Hamas terrorists' mass slaughter of Israeli civilians over the weekend
- Babies and young children were reportedly slain, with some beheaded, in the kibbutz of Kfar Aza
- 1,200 people have been killed in Israel - while the death toll in Gaza hit 1,055
- At least 17 Brits are feared to be either dead or missing across Israel and Gaza
- Strikes on Gaza continue - with reports of rockets also being fired into Israel from Lebanon and Syria
- Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu dubbed Hamas 'worse than ISIS' in a phone call with US President Joe Biden
- Families are still desperately waiting for news on hostages captured by Hamas - including tattoo artist Shani Louk
- Netanyahu has formed an emergency government with opposition leader
Just days before she was killed, Ravit had posted a picture from New York marking the Jewish festival of Sukkot.
The week-long religious celebration ended just before Hamas' brutal attacks in the early hours of Saturday morning.
Every year the young officer and her dad would go to the US to sell fruits known as "etrog" - Hebrew for citron - to the Jewish community in New York as part of Sukkot.
Her heartbroken dad Shimon Assayag told MailOnline: "My daughter wanted to be a border guard.
"I have brought up my children to do their duty for the nation.
"However, she did not have to go into the military, she could have some other kind of national service.
"But she insisted on in joining a combat unit. She wanted to protect our country, to protect Israel."
He reportedly urged his daughter to stay with him in America to see out the religious holiday, but she insisted on going back.
She apparently told him: "Dad, I have another family now, their name is the Border Police. I have to get back to them."
Shimon added: "In New York they called her the "Iron Woman."
"She was so talented. She was only 19 but I no longer had to support her. She was a singer and song writer, she was a professional make-up artist. She had her whole life ahead of her."
Ravit joined a combat unit of the Israeli Border Guard nine months before she died.
She was the third of her siblings to join the Israeli military.
Another brave Israeli woman was hailed as a hero after saving her entire community from blood-thirsty Hamas terrorists.
Inbar Lieberman helped coordinate defensive measures to kill two dozen Hamas militants from invading the kibbutz of Nir Am, only one mile from the besieged Gaza strip.
In one town, Hamas terrorists are claimed to have massacred at least 40 babies and kids in a sickening rampage.
Israeli soldiers discovered scenes of unimaginable horror in Kfar Aza - a village close to the Gaza border that was captured for two days by the Hamas militants.
It comes amid fears the Middle East is on the brink of an all out war as a barrage of missiles were fired from Lebanon and Syria into Israel.
And the UK's Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly, was forced to dash for shelter as air sirens blared in Ofakim.
More than 2,000 have died in the bloody conflict, and Israel has vowed to raze Gaza to the ground.
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Forces unleashed 250 airstrikes in just one hour early on Wednesday, Fox News' Trey Yingst reported.
An Israeli defence official told Channel 13 News that Gaza would become a "tent city" after Hamas fighters broke through the border fence and stormed into the country's south at the weekend.
