Incredible tale of hero mother-of-four who captured FIVE Hamas terrorists and saved more than 120 lives after gunmen stormed her farming community on October 7

As the sound of rockets and gunfire broke the early morning silence on October 7, Nasreen Yussef looked out her window at a menacing sight.

A lone gunman ran straight toward her home in an agricultural moshav in Y’ated, just over two miles from the Gaza border.

The community was one of the first areas infiltrated by Hamas terrorists during the barbaric attack on Israel, which killed more than 1,200 people.

But thanks to this heroic mother of four, more than 120 of her neighbors’ lives were saved that day.

When Yussef saw the attacker, he took action and ran outside, where she grabbed him by the shirt and demanded in Arabic to know what he was doing there.

Miraculously, perhaps because he appeared to be on drugs and was shocked to hear her speaking Arabic, the terrorist did not shoot her – and with the help of an armed neighbor, she was able to tie him up in her backyard.

Speaking exclusively to DailyMail.com, she said: ‘I told him to look me in the eye and that I wasn’t afraid of him. I asked him to tell me where he comes from and if there are other people with him. He looked at me and pointed to a greenhouse where more terrorists were hiding.’

Yussef then not only went on to capture four more terrorists, but was also able to pass on critical information to the IDF soldiers about where hundreds of other gunmen were hiding.

Yusef had hidden her children in their safe room that morning at the first sound of rockets. Her husband was injured with a broken foot, but was able to help her guard the captured terrorists in their backyard.

With no electricity, limited food and little running water, the family had no idea a massacre would take place nearby. But for the next 24 hours, the couple stayed put and tried to provide the IDF with as much information as they could gather.

Yussef told the terrorists in Arabic that no harm would come to them if they cooperated and told her where the other people came from.

“I told them, ‘I’ll give you money, I’ll give you gold, I’ll feed you, make sure you’re clean, and take you somewhere you can escape so you don’t have to face any repercussions if you cooperate. ‘ she said.

They eventually confessed that they had entered through a break in Rafai’s fence.

She recalled how one of the terrorists, named Mohammed, tried to stop the others from speaking and told them to “keep quiet.”

During this time, alarms and sirens went off and they could hear shooting and rockets.

Around 6 p.m., one of the terrorist’s cellphones rang and when Yussef answered, the caller identified himself as Elesh – a Hamas leader nicknamed The Nest.

Thinking quickly, she told him she was an Arab and had a hideout where she could protect terrorists from the IDF. The caller had no idea that an IDF soldier was standing next to her and listening.

He was suspicious, but Yussef kept him on the phone and started to gain his trust.

“I asked him how many more people were coming,” she said.

“I told him I wanted to help them and told him to tell them to come to the pink house. I told him I will make sure there is food and water, clothing, everything they need, and a place where they can hide.”

Finally, he told her that hundreds more would come from the fence area.

At that point, she asked him how close they were and he told her they were “very.”

Yussef quickly relayed this information to the IDF soldiers so they could intercept them while she stayed behind to watch their captors.

She said: ‘We just sat there in the dark. There was no electricity, no reception, nothing. We couldn’t communicate with anyone. We were running out of food and water.”

It wasn’t until early Sunday morning that she learned about all the other people in the nearby kibbutz and other parts of the south who had been killed.

She also received the heartbreaking news that her best friend, Ido, had been murdered, along with other friends who were like family.

“I was trying to keep it together,” she said.

Distraught and overwhelmed, she went outside and started hitting one of the terrorists, but an Israeli soldier told her she was not allowed to have contact with them.

A tearful Yussef said: “They just killed all the people I love.”

It was around this time that one of the IDF soldiers received a phone call and learned that his best friend had also been killed.

“He asked me if he could hug me and then he told me that one of his best friends had also been murdered,” she said.

After that heartbreaking moment, the soldier urged her to leave with her family, telling her it was no longer safe for her to be there.

As she drove away from her home with her four children, she cried as she took in the utter devastation of dead bodies strewn across the roads and burned-out cars.

It was later revealed that the five terrorists she captured were armed with guns, grenades and other weapons.

She saw Hamas and Isis logos on them, and the receipts DailyMail.com saw showed some kind of payment for the killings they were ordered to carry out.

They also had lists with them of all the names of the people who lived in the mohav – their names, their occupations, their ages – and they even knew that Yussef had two dogs and a parrot.

Shuki Hasson, Yussef’s translator, told DailyMail.com that three members of the moshav were tragically killed – a grandfather, father and son – but more than 120 lives were saved by Yussef’s actions.

Yussef said she has no explanation as to why her life was spared and continues to struggle to cope with the trauma.

On Wednesday she finally returned home for the first time since October 7.

But for her, the peaceful farming community she once called “heaven” has been destroyed and now “stenches with death.”