‘I’m extremely proud of them’ – Father and husband of British-Israelis killed in West Bank calls for peace
The father and husband of three British-Israelis murdered in the West Bank this month has told Sky News that he is immensely proud of his wife and daughters, and called on the international community to come together to bring peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
In an exclusive interview at the family home in the Israeli settlement of Efrat, Rabbi Leo Dee said he has faith that some good could come from the tragedy and praised the British government for changing its response to the attack.
The Dee family were driving up the Jordan Valley in the West Bank on Friday 7 April, en route to a Passover holiday on Lake Galilee.
Rabbi Leo Dee
Leo Dee was ahead, in a separate car with two of his children.
Palestinian gunmen shot at the car containing Lucy Dee and two of their daughters Maia, 20, and 15-year-old Rina.
Their car was forced off the road, and the terrorists stopped and fired at it again. Twenty bullet casings were found near the car. Maia and Rina were pronounced dead at the scene. Lucy was airlifted to a hospital outside Jerusalem for emergency surgery.
“I called Lucy, no answer. I called Maia, no answer. I called Rina, and no answer. We were slightly panicking at this point and I looked on Google family link and found that they were at the Hamra Junction and that seemed to be where this attack was.
“My son received on this website a photo of the car. Just the car, and we spotted our suitcases in it, covered in blood.”
They turned around and drove back to the junction but police wouldn’t allow them to go to the car.
However, they were shown Maia’s ID card. At that point, they knew the worst had happened.
Lucy Dee (left), Rina (middle) and Maia. Pic: @LtColRichard
“We bombed back down the motorway to Jerusalem, went to the hospital, she [Lucy] had just been taken into intensive care and was being prepared for an operation.
“The Friday night of the attack, I was in hospital and I had nightmares and then I woke up and my reality was worse than the nightmares, so I went back to sleep and then I had another nightmare. All I could picture was the moment of the crash and the terrorists and the bullets.
“The next night, I decided to focus on the good and I suddenly focused on my two remaining daughters and my son and I thought about them, and I felt a sense of calm and I was able to sleep.”
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‘Our family of seven is now a family of four’
Lucy never regained consciousness and died of her wounds three days later. She donated her organs after her death and five people’s lives have been saved as a result.
“She was declared dead on the Monday and we spent that afternoon, one after another we had half an hour, an hour each to talk to her, we sang to her together and we had a lot of time to have her in front of us,” Rabbi Dee said.
One of the recipients of her organs was an Arab.
“I think that is significant to us because Lucy was very much into peaceful relations with our neighbours and I think she would have been very proud that she saved the life of an Arab.”
Lucy Dee’s children at her funeral
Thousands of people have travelled from across Israel and the world to pay their respects and bring food to the family Shiva, the seven-day period of mourning in the Jewish faith.
As we arrived, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had just flown in by military helicopter to see the family.
“Lucy was an exceptional human being,” Rabbi Dee said. “She was a community builder, she was someone who gave and that was really her defining feature.
“The kids picked up from that and they’ve learnt to give.”
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Maia was working as a counsellor in a school and Reena was at boarding school.
“She [Lucy] would stay up all night talking to girls, particularly girls who were struggling in the group and she would try and help them through their difficulties. She was just busy, busy the whole time. I’m extremely proud of all of them.”
Rabbi Dee was born and grew up in England. He went to Cambridge University and Lucy studied at Oxford – they met in Oxford and married shortly after.
Later he was an assistant Rabbi at a synagogue in north London before moving to Radlett in Hertfordshire. They moved to Israel in 2005.
Maia (left) and Rina (right) were killed in a shooting in the West Bank on Friday 7 April, 2023. Their mother died from her injuries three days later
Rabbi Dee praised the British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly for hardening the initial British response to the attack and said he was calling it the “Cleverly Declaration”, comparing it to the Balfour Declaration of 1917 which said Britain would support the formation of a Jewish state in Palestine.
“I feel that statement, saying that Britain stands unequivocally against violence and against terror, is a landmark in British history in terms of the way it’s dealt with the State of Israel.
“Up until now, there’s not been unequivocal condemnation of violence, there’s actually been a very sort of wishy-washy condemnation of violence which I think is slightly the Foreign Office’s fault,” he said.
Lucy Dee’s three children (middle) and her husband (right) at her funeral
“He [Cleverly], did the right thing, he did the true thing and I can only thank him from the bottom of my heart. This may be the beginning of a new cycle of peace.
“We need to stop giving terror any possible window of goodness, we have to condemn it outright, it’s outright evil, terrorists are outright evil. They have to be told that and treated as such.”
The Israeli military and security services are still hunting for the attacker, so far without success.
An Israeli policeman at the scene of a shooting
“I don’t hold any hate towards them. I feel that the Israeli security forces will do what they usually do which is to track them down and bring them to justice which I think is right because it prevents the next attack that they might do.
“I have faith, I have hope and I believe that the violence is actually caused by a small percentage of the Palestinian population and the vast majority of Palestinians are good people.
“They are prime victims of the Palestinian regime, as are the people in Gaza victims of their regime.”
World
Trump criticises Putin after potentially ‘historic’ meeting with Zelenskyy before Pope’s funeral
Donald Trump has criticised Vladimir Putin and suggested a shift in his stance towards the Russian president after a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy before the Pope’s funeral.
The Ukrainian president said the one-on-one talks could prove to be “historic” after pictures showed him sitting opposite Mr Trump, around two feet apart, in the large marble hall inside St Peter’s Basilica.
The US president said he doubted his Russian counterpart’s willingness to end the war after leaving Rome after the funeral of Pope Francis at the Vatican.
Follow live updates: 200,000 mourn at Vatican
In a post on his Truth Social platform, he said “there was no reason” for the Russian president “to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days”.
The two leaders held talks before attending the Pope’s funeral
He added: “It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through ‘Banking’ or ‘Secondary Sanctions?’ Too many people are dying!!!”
The meeting between the US and Ukrainian leaders was their first face-to-face encounter since a very public row in the Oval Office in February.
Mr Zelenskyy said he had a good meeting with Mr Trump in which they talked about the defence of the Ukrainian people, a full and unconditional ceasefire, and a durable and lasting peace that would prevent the war restarting.
Other images released by the Ukrainian president’s office show Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron were present for part of the talks, which were described as “positive” by the French presidency.
Mr Zelenskyy‘s spokesman said the meeting lasted for around 15 minutes and he and Mr Trump had agreed to hold further discussions later on Saturday.
The world leaders shared a moment before the service
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy meet in the Basilica
But the US president left Rome for Washington on Air Force One soon after the funeral without any other talks having taken place.
The Ukrainian president’s office said there was no second meeting in Rome because of the tight schedule of both leaders, although he had separate discussions with Mr Starmer and Mr Macron.
The French president said in a post on X “Ukraine is ready for an unconditional ceasefire” and that a so-called coalition of the willing, led by the UK and France, would continue working to achieve a lasting peace.
There was applause from some of the other world leaders in attendance at the Vatican when Mr Zelenskyy walked out of St Peter’s Basilica after stopping in front of the pontiff’s coffin to pay his respects.
Donald Trump and the Ukrainian president met for the first time since their Oval Office row. Pic: Reuters
Sir Tony Brenton, the former British ambassador to Russia, said the event presents diplomatic opportunities, including the “biggest possible meeting” between Mr Trump and the Ukrainian leader.
He told Sky News it could mark “an important step” in starting the peace process between Russia and Ukraine.
Professor Father Francesco Giordano told Sky News the meeting is being called “Pope Francis’s miracle” by members of the clergy, adding: “There’s so many things that happened today – it was just overwhelming.”
The bilateral meeting comes after Mr Trump’s peace negotiator Steve Witkoff held talks with Mr Putin at the Kremlin.
They discussed “the possibility of resuming direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine”, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said.
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Russia and Ukraine have not held direct talks since the early weeks of the war, which began in February 2022.
Mr Trump has claimed a deal to end the war is “very close” and has urged Mr Zelenskyy to “get it done” in a post on his Truth Social platform.
He has previously warned both sides his administration would walk away from its efforts to achieve a peace if the two sides do not agree a deal soon.
Meanwhile, the Polish armed forces said a Russian military helicopter violated its airspace over the Baltic Sea on Friday evening.
“The nature of the incident indicates that Russia is testing the readiness of our air defence systems,” they said in a post on X.
On an extraordinary day, remarkable pictures on the margins that capture what may be a turning point for the world.
In a corner of St Peter’s Basilica before the funeral of Pope Francis, the leaders of America and Ukraine sit facing each other in two solitary chairs.
They look like confessor and sinner except we cannot tell which one is which.
Leaning forward hands together in their laps, Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy stare at each other in one photo.
In another, the Ukrainian president seems to be remonstrating with the US president. This is their first encounter since their infamous bust-up in the Oval Office.
The two leaders held talks before attending the Pope’s funeral
Other pictures show the moment their French and British counterparts introduced the two men. There is a palpable sense of nervousness in the way the leaders engage.
We do not know what the two presidents said in their brief meeting.
But in the mind of the Ukrainian leader will be the knowledge President Trump has this week said America will reward Russia for its unprovoked brutal invasion of his country, under any peace deal.
Mr Trump has presented Ukraine and Russia with a proposal and ultimatum so one-sided it could have been written in the Kremlin.
Kyiv must surrender the land Russia has taken by force, Crimea forever, the rest at least for now. And it must submit to an act of extortion, a proposed deal that would hand over half its mineral wealth effectively to America.
The world leaders shared a moment before the service
Afterwards, Zelenskyy said it had been a good meeting that could turn out to be historic “if we reach results together”.
They had talked, he said, about the defence of Ukraine, a full and unconditional ceasefire and a durable and lasting peace that will prevent a war restarting.
The Trump peace proposal includes only unspecified security guarantees for Ukraine from countries that do not include the US. It rules out any membership of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s allies are watching closely to see if Mr Trump will apply any pressure on Vladimir Putin, let alone punish him for recent bloody attacks on Ukraine.
Or will he simply walk away if the proposal fails, blaming Ukrainian intransigence, however outrageously, before moving onto a rapprochement with Moscow.
If he does, America’s role as guarantor of international security will be seen effectively as over.
This could be the week we see the world order as we have known it since the end of the Second World War buried, as well as a pope.
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