Israeli tech billionaire Eyal Waldman wanted peace despite daughter’s killing

• Eyal friends were ambushed by Hamas gunmen who showered it with bullets.
• Tragically, nearly 360 other Israelis who had attended the Negev desert festival near the Gaza border also lost their lives that day.
• He found the bullet-riddled car, but there was no sign of Danielle. 

On the early morning of October 7th, Danielle Waldman enjoyed the last dance of her young life before tragedy struck. In the aftermath, she and her friends found themselves fleeing for safety, tragically never reaching home.

In the final moments captured on a brief phone video, 24-year-old Danielle is seen in the back seat of a car with her friends, strands of her long curly hair escaping from her grey hoodie. The casual atmosphere is shattered by the underlying tension as they try to stay composed while being pursued.

In the front seat is Danielle’s boyfriend, Noam Shai, behind the wheel. The fleeting smiles, overlapping voices, and glimpses of blue wristbands from the recently attended Supernova trance music festival provide a stark contrast to the imminent danger they face.

“Want me to drive very, very fast?” he asks. “I know how to do that.”

“Correct,” replies a female passenger. A bearded young man sitting beside Danielle tries to provide reassurance. “We will be all right,” he says. “Everything is ok, right?”

Next, from the front, an urgent demand – “left, or right?” Then the video ends.

Shortly after the festival, the car carrying Noam, Danielle, and their friends was ambushed by Hamas gunmen who showered it with bullets. Tragically, nearly 360 other Israelis who had attended the Negev desert festival near the Gaza border also lost their lives that day.

The front seat passenger was taken hostage, and by the day’s end, a devastating total of 1,200 Israelis had been killed—either at the festival or in nearby kibbutzim along the border. This marked the deadliest day for Jewish lives since the Holocaust, with the vast majority being civilians.

In response, Israel initiated a war in Gaza with the goal of “eradicating Hamas,” resulting in further casualties on both sides. The Palestinian death toll, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, has reached almost 18,000, including 7,300 children.

In the aftermath of October 7th, parents in Gaza, much like those in Israel, are mourning the loss of their children. We find Danielle’s father, Eyal, in his office overlooking Tel Aviv. Though he’s been a tech giant, having founded Mellanox Technologies and sold it for $6.8 billion in 2019, he is now, above all, a grieving father, grappling with the profound loss of his youngest daughter.

“She was an amazing girl,” he says in a voice laden with love and grief. “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.” Her father said

When he got word that Danielle was missing, he raced back from a trip to Indonesia – getting permission to land in Israel, even though the airspace was closed. Three hours later he went looking for her, tracking her Apple watch. It was a journey into a battlefield.

“We were close to an engagement with seven terrorists, creatures, call them what you want,” he says. “They had killed three or four soldiers. After that we took three officers in a jeep and went down south.”

He found the bullet-riddled car, but there was no sign of Danielle.

“There was a lot of blood inside the car,” he says. “I was hoping she wasn’t in the car, or that she was wounded but was able to escape, or was taken hostage.” Two days later her body was found.

“Everything she touched was with a smile. She never did anything wrong to anyone,” he says, choking back tears. “She just loved doing good things. And they [Hamas] just murdered her for no reason.”

Even after the heartbreaking loss of his youngest daughter, Eyal Waldman continues to hold the belief that Palestinians deserve their own state and that it should become a reality sooner rather than later.

“We need to change leadership on both sides. And then I hope in two to four years we’ll be able to do peace and build two states for the two people and be able to live together next to each other,” he says.

But before that, he wants something else.

“Anyone responsible, anyone that was associated with what happened on 7 October 2023, will be eliminated. And we will take care of that,” he says firmly.

“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.”

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