Tel Aviv shooting victim identified as new mother who died protecting her infant

A young mother was among the victims of a suspected terrorist attack outside Tel Aviv on Tuesday evening, which occurred just as Iran began firing a volley of ballistic missiles into Israel in response to Israeli actions against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

According to Israeli media reports, 33-year-old Inbar Segev-Vigder died while protecting her nine-month-old boy Ari, who was strapped to her chest, when she was shot at a light rail station in Jaffa. The boy should be safe.

Israel's official social media channels identified Segev-Vigder as one of the seven victims of the shooting.

The shooting was carried out by two men Israel identified as Muhammad Chalaf Sahar Rajab and Hassan Muhammad Hassan Tamimi Jerusalem Post. The men left the station and opened fire on Jerusalem Street in the city. One was armed with a rifle. The other had a knife.

The attackers fled on foot and were fatally shot by security forces and civilians with their personal pistols, according to officials. The two men were identified as Palestinian residents of the southern West Bank city of Hebron.

According to the Associated Press, police said Rajab and Tamimi had not been previously arrested.

In addition to the seven killed, at least eight others, including a child, were injured in the shooting, according to Israeli police. The injured were evacuated to Wolfson Medical Center in Holon and Ichilov Medical Center in Tel Aviv. At least two were in critical condition with head injuries.

Segev-Vigder's baby was unharmed and was taken to a hospital by a good Samaritan after his mother was killed.

“[Segev-Vigder] “I wanted to get off the train and was shot,” a train passenger told Ynet. “We heard the baby crying.” We pulled him out of the van. One of the police officers took me and the baby to Wolfson in a van [Hospital].”

The World Jewish Congress posted on X, calling Segev-Vigder “a hero who saved her child, and we will remember her as such.”

Accordingly, Segev-Vigder lived in Tel Aviv Jerusalem Postwhere she owned a fitness and Pilates studio. Her husband, Yaari Vigder, is a soldier in the Israeli reserves. According to KAN, he is currently fighting in Gaza.

Vigder told KAN that he rode his bike to the crime scene after receiving no response from his wife. He couldn't find her.

“After a thorough search, I found our dog shot while passersby were tending to him,” he told the outlet.

“I looked all over the neighborhood for Inbar and realized I had to go to the hospital because I couldn’t get an answer anywhere.”

Vigder found his son with a doctor as they huddled in the hospital's protected area because of the Iranian missile attack.

“Ari was in a stretcher that covered Inbar's entire upper body during the attack, he was not injured at all,” Vigder said. “May he feel the same love he received from Inbar for the rest of his life.”

Four other victims of the shooting were identified: Georgian citizen Ilya Nozadze, 42; student Revital Bronstein, 24; Moldovan immigrant Nadia Sokolenko, 40; and international dancer Sahar Goldman, 30. Two other people have not yet been named.

The shooting appeared to be a coordinated terrorist attack that coincided with the latest escalation in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran's proxy forces Hezbollah, Hamas and Houthis. The rockets passed over Tel Aviv and Jerusalem but did not appear to cause any significant damage. Several people were injured by rocket fragments falling over Jericho, and at least one man was killed by falling rocket hulls in Gaza.

The attack was later confirmed by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which said “dozens of ballistic missiles at key military and security targets” were fired in “self-defense” over the assassination of Hamas Politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July and as Responding to “the exacerbation of the regime’s evils with the support of the United States” over attacks in Gaza and Lebanon.