Heroic dog who saved his family from the October 7 Hamas attack has died

The heroic dog who saved her family’s life when Hamas terrorists tried to raid their home during the murderous Oct. 7 attacks has died, her family told The Post.

When terrorists smashed a kitchen window in the Ben-Zvi family’s home in Kibbutz Be’eri in southern Israel, 11-year-old Labrador mix Petel began barking like crazy from the safe room.

“She jumps at the door and barks like crazy,” remembers 38-year-old Ela Ben-Zvi.

The dog’s barking, she added, was picked up by a baby monitor in the security room that was connected to the house’s stereo, which then played the dog’s growling, causing the terrorists to flee.

“The same terrorist group entered the homes of two of our neighbors and killed them,” she added. “It can be assumed that their presence … saved our lives.”

When Israeli troops arrived at the Ben-Zvis’ home later that day to rescue the couple and their children, the dog refused to leave the house.

“We couldn’t carry her because I had one child on my back and another one dragging behind me. My husband held the youngest child and the backpack with one set of clothes each,” she said, adding that the soldiers could not carry the dog and protect the family at the same time.

Before the couple fled on foot under a hail of bullets, they locked Petel in his room with food and water and planned to return in a few days.

The following Tuesday, however, Ben-Zvis learned that Petel had been found wounded at the kibbutz’s entrance gate.

Soldiers bandaged the dog and took her to a veterinary clinic in Rehovot, where she underwent surgery to set a broken leg and remove shrapnel lodged in her body.

The Ben-Zvis were initially evacuated to a hotel near the Dead Sea in northern Israel.

In March, they moved into a house with a garden, where they met their furry heroine again and kept her by their side until she died suddenly but peacefully last week.

“If it hadn’t been for October 7, Petel would still be with us,” said Ben-Zvi.