Nikita Soumrov and his son, Avi, were among the thousands of Israelis who were attacked on the morning of Oct. 7, after Hamas gunmen surged into southern Israel from Gaza.
Roughly 1,400 people were killed — in their homes, in bomb shelters, at an outdoor rave.
Avi, 4, escaped by hiding in a closet.
He and many other survivors remain traumatized by the experience.
These are their stories.
“Through the window, I could see the terrorists setting fire to the houses around us.” — Yossef Rozansky, 67
Yossef Rozansky and his wife and daughter ran out to rescue a neighbor in Kibbutz Holit whose house was ablaze. Then they retreated to their own safe room. A grenade exploded in their home. They braced the door. Another explosion wounded all eight family members inside. His daughter applied a tourniquet to his leg. “I’m wounded,” he recalled, “sitting there hugging my granddaughter and everyone else sitting inside the safe room, keeping very quiet and all the time looking at their wounded grandmother and the blood spreading all over the room.”
“It was like a shooting range.” — Hila Fakliro, 26, who survived the Hamas attack at the Tribe of Nova music festival
Hila Fakliro, a fitness instructor, was tending bar at the Tribe of Nova music festival when she saw what she thought were fireworks. “I don’t think those are fireworks,” a fellow bartender said. They were Hamas rockets. Soon, men with guns appeared amid the eucalyptus trees where revelers had just been dancing. “There were these crazy maniacs with guns and people falling one by one,” Ms. Fakliro said.
“It was the scariest day of my life.” — Stav Nitzan, 8, who hid for 12 hours in a safe room in Netiv Haasara
“Mom woke me up and just said ‘run to the safe room,’ and my dad took out his weapon and guarded our front door,”’ recalled Stav Nitzan, the youngest of three brothers. “I needed to sit quietly so that the terrorists didn’t break into our safe room. Every time I wanted to step out, there was another rocket.”
Finally, the family was rescued with the help of their neighbor Benny, “who is the bravest man in the world, because lots of terrorists chased after him and he managed to rescue us, together with other dads,” Stav said.
“I know that we will all need a lot of mental help to survive and return to our lives.” — Tami Cohen Shapira, 55, with her husband, Patrick Cohen, 58, and their sons Gil, 18, and Dan, 15. Her son Ziv, 26, was killed trying to escape the music festival.
“The last message I got from my mom that morning was that she cracked the pangram on Spelling Bee.” — Keren Flash, 34, with her husband, Avidor Schwartzman, 37, and their daughter, Saar, 1. Her mother and father, Cindy and Yigal, were killed nearby in the kibbutz Kfar Aza.
“It was only after we were able to get on the bus that evacuated us, we learned of the miracle our family had.” – Avivit Gohn, 62, who lives in Kibbutz Be’eri….
2023-11-03 18:35:03
Article from www.nytimes.com
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