A heart-wrenching phone call between a mother and her son ended in tragedy last week when Sgt. Eyal Shynes, 19, was shot and killed while serving in the southern Gaza Strip. His mother, Meirav Shynes, was on the phone with him when he was hit by a sniper, leaving her helpless as she listened to his cries for help before succumbing to his wounds. Meirav recalled the conversation, saying, “We spoke for a few minutes… And then suddenly I hear that they are shooting him, and that’s how the conversation ended. But we still heard everything, and it was terrible.” She immediately understood that her son was wounded but didn’t think he had been killed. As she and her husband drove to the Tel Aviv area, they began to suspect the worst when they didn’t receive any updates from the army. Meirav said, “And then they asked if we were at home; then I really understood.” Sgt. Eyal Shynes was posthumously promoted from corporal and buried near his hometown kibbutz of Afik in the southern Golan Heights. His death brought the toll of slain troops in the ground offensive against Hamas to 316. Hamas’s al-Qassam Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack, releasing footage showing a sniper hitting Shynes. The IDF believes the area was relatively safe, which may explain why Shynes wasn’t wearing a helmet at the time of the shooting. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)