When Vered and Ran were 4 years old, Kibbutz Kfar Azza moved into family accommodation. Until then, we slept in shared accommodation. "Ran always wanted to come sleep with me," Vered smiles at the memory, and I think about the fact that in every home children of those years there was a boy or girl next to whom the darkness was less frightening. Close to them felt like no bad dreams would come.
After the massacre and fierce battles: Israel Hayom commentator Yoav Limor on a tour of the communities near the Gaza Strip
Last Tuesday, on the lawn of the Shefayim Hotel, to which the people of Kfar Gaza were evacuated, I looked at Vered standing among all the people and thought that even now, 46 years later, this girl remained in her, between whose arms the friends wanted to find some strength. Maybe for a moment she will make this nightmare disappear and they can cry in her embrace the loss, theirs and hers. Vered, who last Saturday lost her man, her mother and her nephew's son. Nitzan, her eldest son, has since been listed as missing.
30 hours in the safe room
Vered married Ofir Liebstein, the man from Kfar Nettar who fell in love with her and the Gaza envelope, who initiated and flourished "Red South" and became the head of the Sha'ar Hanegev council. On Saturday, when everything started, he jumped out to get to the alert classroom and it closed with the children in the safe room. When phone calls started coming to her looking for him, she asked one of the children to locate the phone. He told her the phone was in the garden, where they found it.
She spent 30 hours in the safe room with the children. Nitzan, the eldest son, who was in the living quarters of the younger generation, called to say that he had been shot in the thigh. On the phone, she instructed him how to make a tourniquet from the phone's cable. At some point the battery ran out. He hasn't been found since.
Photo: Efrat Eshel,
She spends her nights in Matan with her extended family. Shefayim deserves to be strengthened and strengthened, and also for Uri, her little one, to play with his friends. Water park, pool, creative activities, from time to time some players go up to the grass to play with the kibbutz children. A lot of camps and tournaments know Shefayim's grass. In the late afternoon even Eran Zehavi came.
"It's always been her place. The reinforcer," Ran tells me when I ask him how it's like, that Vered's eyes have a smile that still insists on his place in the world. The two remained good friends, even though it had been years since he left the kibbutz.
In the morning, he filled the car with cartons from the "Breads" bakery, which he has been running for the past few months, and we drove together to Shefayim, where the hotel's café explodes with good intentions. Donations from individuals and companies filled it with baby products, clothes for all ages, cosmetics, games and sweets endlessly. "What are we going to do with all this?" someone asks almost to herself.
Photo: Efrat Eshel,
"Don't take it lightly"
The grass is strewn with stories. People in circles, some fall silent when foreign ears approach, others are willing to talk, but without names and without too many details.
Stories about a father who stood for hours with his hands on the safe room door, continuing with a tourniquet after an IED attached to her exploded on the other side. About the single mother who, miraculously, no one entered her house, who didn't even know that's how it is with the safe room – it closes from the inside, only there's no problem opening from the outside. "Someone will get very rich from this manufacturing bug. You'll see," they throw at me.
Every now and then news breaks into the grass. More names, death haunts death, like a catcher from hell. Fragments of testimonies, fragments of information under an angry blue sky come together to the scream of horror that tore through the Gaza envelope on Saturday morning, which destroyed this region that I love so much, that I have been writing it for so many years.
I wrote it and those in the days when it was possible to devote oneself to the quiet they offered, and in the days when the melody of war devoured everything. For years I have heard these people, who insisted on his beautiful land, talking about their abandonment.
Photo: Efrat Eshel,
Stories of all the agricultural workers and dairy farmers who were outside and were murdered first. About the farm member who, as soon as he understood what was happening, left the family in the safe room and lay outside, seeing everything that was happening from there. The terrorists, dressed in vests, armed with weapons and RPG missiles, climb onto rooftops and those hiding below. I see them shooting into the veterans' quarters.
"At some point he calls some relative in the regular army to tell him that he sees IDF soldiers approaching," the story continues. "Let the forces not take it lightly. That they are commandos and that they hide everywhere. He saw them destroy three armored personnel carriers that had entered the kibbutz. But until the IDF realized who they were dealing with, they were slaughtered."
Incomprehensible stories about the history of these two days, which were accompanied by the incessant sound of gunshots, screams, babies who learned not to cry, dogs that did not bark, and the terror of the batteries on the phone that were running low, until contact was lost and everyone became his fears and fate.
The agricultural workers and dairy farmers who were outside were murdered first. A farm member who understood what was happening left the family in the safe room and lay outside, watching the armed terrorists go up to the rooftops and those hiding. Seeing them shooting into the veterans' quarters
The beds are next to the door
The last evacuees to leave Gaza were Noam's parents, whose eyes burn from lack of sleep. He has four children, three sons and a daughter, who last Friday went with his mother to sleep in Ashkelon, at his grandparents' house, because he insisted on resting.
Even when the sirens went off at six o'clock in the morning, he went into the safe room and continued to sleep, not putting a name on the phone that scrambled. Only when the shooting started did he realize it was something else. "I lived in Honduras, Thailand and a kibbutz, and I never locked the door. I don't have a key," he says.
From the bed linen of the children in the safe room he created a long strip with which he tied the door. He pinned the beds themselves to the door and that's how he barricaded himself. One time, soldiers came by and brought water, told him it would be strong and that they were already coming to release him, but they got caught in fire.
On Sunday night, when he got to Elonit, he called his parents and his father answered and said they were still home. "And I tell the soldiers, this is home, there are pensioners there, they are there and they live, but no one came.
"And I go to another officer and they tell me, 'We're on it.' It took them three hours to succeed. Every time they tried to get close to my parents' house, they were shot. It was absolute madness what went on there."
Every once in a while one of the children asks questions and Dad comes to the beach and Dad comes here, and if he has already told me about the mortar that once fell in their yard and he, with everything his tired eyes saw, answers them quietly and patiently. Explains that the scariest thing is the things you see and then return to thoughts and they, luckily, didn't. When I ask if they will return to the village of Gaza, he says in English that he doesn't think so. That maybe everything they've been through is enough.
On Sunday night, Noam called his parents and his father said they were still home. "And I tell the soldiers, this is home, there are pensioners there and they live. It took three hours to rescue. Every time the soldiers tried to get close to my parents' house, they were fired. Absolute madness"
"You're the chef," Siegel exclaims. "When it's all over and if there's a house to go back to, maybe we'll do something in our kitchen. Ronen and I are strong when it comes to food."
They spent hours in the safe room with one of their sons, her 85-year-old mother, and the two dogs that didn't bark. Everyone didn't take out a steering wheel.
"When the sirens started, my son went to the window," Siegel continues, holding a leash belonging to Lucy, a redhead who occasionally comes in with a dog passing by. "He likes to see launches. He saw the drone and notified the alert squad. After that, he fought the terrorists who tried to enter the safe room and was shot in the right hand."
Photo: Efrat Eshel,
For hours, the terrorists fought from inside their homes, three times trying to break down the safe room door, while in the meantime, from Sri Lanka, their eldest Guy tried to rescue them. He actually managed to send force to the parents' house, but no matter how much they didn't call the household, no one answered. "I wouldn't believe them," says Siegel, "if only they had come up with some kind of Mochman message, say Guy in Sri Lanka."
After countless calls and when the shooting resumed, the force left the scene, reporting that there was no sign of life in the house. Guy spent that night knowing that he had lost Mom and Dad.
Thirty hours passed before they were rescued, and if you ask Siegel, it's all from above. From my mother's prayers, all she asked them to bring with them to the safe room was psalms and a prayer book.
"When the sirens started, my son went to the window," Siegel says, holding a leash belonging to her Lucy, a redhead mother. "He saw the drone and notified the alert squad. After that, he fought the terrorists who tried to enter the safe room and was shot in the right hand."
"Make sure it doesn't happen again"
Naama has no doubt that she is staying. For three years she has lived in the village of Gaza, 33 years old, a student at Sapir College who is doing a master's degree in administration and public policy, and her whole body is full of flowers. Idan Dichi, a tattoo artist from Ashkelon, is the one who paints her that way. With a gentle and precise hand.
At 6:30 she woke up. "I heard them behind my house," she says. "There were rumors of infiltration, but they said to ignore it. Fifteen minutes later, it was certain."
"I heard them behind my house," Naama says. "There were rumors of an infiltration and after fifteen minutes it was certain." She went into the safe room and wrote to her little brother over and over again, to understand that this was no joke. Let him do something, pray for her, pray for her. At 14 p.m., the battery ran out
She went into the safe room and wrote to her little brother over and over again, to understand that this was no joke. Let him do something, pray for her, pray for her. By 14 p.m., the battery had run out.
"When they rescued me at one o'clock in the morning, under fire, I was shocked by the hour. I was sure they would come and rescue us by noon. I remember my biggest fear was being forgotten. Let them not remember that I am there."
All she has in the world is what she took with her. Pajamas and some medication. She forgot the computer and with the car there is no telling what happened. "But Gaza village is home. Of course I will be back. I think we need to examine how and why what happened and make sure it doesn't happen again. Rehabilitating infrastructure is easy, sustaining people when half the community doesn't exist is what is difficult and complex. And what's critical is to restore trust. That's the big story."
Gaza Village is not alone! To donate to the kibbutz community, click here.
shishabat@israelhayom.co.il
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