Hamid Abu Ar’ara takes out his cell phone and wants to show us a short video and then a photo. It will not be an easy viewing for any of us.
The film was shot with a traffic camera at a rural T-junction not far from Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip. It is 7:05 a.m. on the morning of October 7th – or “Black Saturday,” as Hamid and so many other Israelis describe the day.
As the footage begins, a black Hyundai appears from the side street. It dutifully stops because four motorcycles are approaching from the left. A fatal mistake.
There are two men on each motorcycle, and as they turn into the street from which the Hyundai came, the passengers fire automatic shots at the stationary car.
We can see the windows dissolving into a veil of glass and bullets ricocheting off the street. The car is there forever.
This is the moment Hamas gunmen opened fire on the car of Hamid Abu Ar’ara, which killed his wife in the October 7 terror attacks in Israel. He then endured an epic seven-hour test of survival
Hamid Abu Ar’ara (left), a Bedouin farmer, pictured with his eight-year-old son Elias
The murder of Fatima (pictured) was just the start of an epic seven-hour ordeal as Hamid tried to save herself, her wounded eight-month-old son Elias and another Bedouin
Hamid continues scrolling through his phone’s picture library and finds another picture. It is a photo of a middle-aged woman. She is wearing a hijab and is covered in blood, slumped lifelessly at the steering wheel of the same Hyundai.
Hamid, a tough Bedouin farmer, begins to cry quietly. This is his “beloved” wife Fatima, who drove him to work like she did every day until they met with Hamas.
Fatima’s murder was just the beginning of an epic, seven-hour ordeal in which Hamid tried to save herself, her wounded eight-month-old son Elias and another Bedouin after they were caught at the epicenter of the bloodshed.
It is certainly one of the most extraordinary survival stories to emerge from the October 7 massacres. But it also serves to shed light on an underreported aspect of the atrocities; how Hamas gunmen did not hesitate to execute or kidnap fellow Muslims they encountered during their two-day rampage.
Yesterday, Mail photographer Jamie Wiseman and I traveled to the Negev Desert in southern Israel, where about 200,000 members of Israel’s Bedouin Arab community live in run-down towns or villages and more traditional nomadic camps.
We spoke to Bedouin families whose members were either killed or taken hostage by Hamas. Because their tribal culture largely transcends national borders, its people largely live on the physical, economic and social margins of Israeli society. But not marginal enough for the Hamas terrorists.
They have Israeli citizenship and although they are not drafted into the army like Israeli Jews or Druze, around 1,500 Bedouin volunteers serve in their own light infantry regiment or as specialized trackers for other IDF units.
Hamid lost his “beloved” wife Fatima, who had driven him to work like she did every day until they met with Hamas
Hamid and Fatima had seven sons and two daughters. The youngest is Elias, and at 6:40 a.m. on Black Saturday, Fatima drove her – her husband doesn’t have a driver’s license – from their home in Rahat to the greenhouse tomato shop Hamid ran in Mivtahim, less than five miles from the Gaza border.
Two Bedouin farm workers, a father and son, sat on either side of Elias, who sat in a child’s chair in the back seat.
“After the motorbikes passed us, I tried to pick Fatima up from where she had fallen. And then I saw that she had been hit 20 times,” recalls 47-year-old Hamid. He says the gunmen knew she was of their own faith.
“We are a religious Muslim family and she was wearing the traditional headdress of a pious woman.” It is inconceivable that they could not see who was inside. When they passed, they were five meters away and the window was rolled down.
“She said she couldn’t feel her legs. Her head was open and I could see her brain. I knew she was close to death. Since I am a devout Muslim, I asked her to say the Shahada prayer, which one says before dying. She said it four times and before the fifth time she was dead.
“That wasn’t the end,” says Hamid. “I got out of the car, opened Fatima’s door and closed her eyes. I then called the police who responded but said they were overwhelmed. They said they would be with me as soon as possible.’
The survivors were on their own.
Hamid heard the young worker who had been sitting behind Fatima calling for help. He had also taken the brunt of the attack.
“We pulled him out of the car and put him under a tree. He said the last prayer and a few minutes later he too died.’
Baby Elias was also hit between his shoulder blades by a bullet fragment. “My son was in shock and unnaturally quiet. I shook him and he started crying. Then we had to look for a place to hide.’
The only refuge was an abandoned hut on the side of the road. “We closed the door and waited for rescue.”
It would be a long and terrible vigil. Hamas was everywhere and the temperature was rising.
“The baby was still breastfeeding,” says Hamid. “We had a bottle of formula with us that Fatima had prepared for the trip. This soon ran out and my son became very unhappy. He cried and that became very dangerous for us.’
Around midday, while hiding in a hut, Hamid looked through a crack in the metal door and saw that Hamas terrorists had returned to the intersection. Their location appeared to have become a meeting point for groups of armed men who set out on bicycles, pickup trucks and stolen cars to attack surrounding communities.
“For five hours I secretly watched them come and go, shoot and kill somewhere and come back again. Then a group left and returned almost immediately, and I became even more worried.
“It seemed like they wanted to set up an ambush at the intersection.” And so four of them hid behind our hut. I could hear them discussing the situation. They were just inches away from us.’
At that moment, Elias began to cry again.
“I heard them talking and saying they heard the baby.” I heard them [cocking] their weapons. They came to finish me off. But then I heard Hebrew from the other side. I heard that the army came.
“That’s when the firefight began, and we found ourselves in the middle of it.
“At first the soldiers were confused. I think the first Hamas shot hit one of them. Then everyone fired. I lay down and covered my son. The soldiers shot into the hut.’
I asked him what would have happened if he had gotten out and tried to reason with the Hamas shooter by saying he was a Muslim civilian.
‘Are you crazy?’ Hamid reacts in disbelief. “Did you suffer from heat stroke?” First of all, don’t be impressed by any humanitarian gestures from Hamas. They are only calculated for the foreign press. They are killing machines.
“The reason why I, as a Muslim, could not turn to them is because they have already killed my wife.” When I was in the hut, I also heard and saw them two other Bedouins in a car at the intersection stopped. The boys said we were Arabs, Bedouins. Hamas put their weapons in their car and killed them at close range.”
He says, “I had to make a quick decision.” I was blessed by Allah with a strong heart. At that moment I had to decide how we would die. There was a lull in the firefight and I thought the soldiers were now preparing to throw grenades at the hut. I would rather die by bullets.’
He took off his shirt to show that he was not wearing a suicide vest, held Elias to his chest and opened the door of the hut opposite the IDF.
“They immediately shot at me.” They missed the target, but hit the metal doors and I received shrapnel from them in the back.
“Then I heard a commander shout ‘ceasefire’ and ‘That must be the guy who sent us the reports from the intersection.'” There were lots of hugs. The officers were grateful.”
What Hamid says next is unexpected given the polarized and toxic narrative of the current war.
“The soldiers said I was a hero,” says Hamid. “I told them, ‘I am a citizen of this country.’ [Israel] and I only did my duty.’
But what about the Hamas gunmen who were behind the hut? “The real job was done,” he nods, implying that they died in the firefight.
As we speak, an unexpected figure comes through the door. It is a huge, bearded Jewish volunteer medic wearing a yarmulke and holding a gift basket of fruit. “I finally found you again,” he says to Hamid. This is Arial, who was the first paramedic on the scene when Hamid and his son were rescued.
“Hamid screamed all the way to the hospital, ‘They murdered my wife!'” Arial remembers. “The baby was in complete shock. ‘I bandaged his wound.’
The Bedouin and the Jew hug each other.
Night has fallen over the Negev. In a nearby street we visit the house of Dr. Tarek Abu Arara, who stopped his car on the road near Sderot on October 7 to help a victim who appeared to have been in an accident.
The “victim” was actually a Hamas gunman who signaled the Bedouin to approach and then shot him in the chest from 10 meters away.
Dr. Tarek sleeps and recovers from his ordeal. However, he recalled that after he was shot, Hamas interrogated him about his knowledge of Islam and for two hours used him as a human shield against Israeli airstrikes that massacred the passengers of passing cars.
During this time, one of the gunmen shot the doctor in the leg to prevent him from escaping, signaling with his hand that the next bullet would land in his head.
“I started bleeding pretty badly,” Dr. recalled. Tarek. “I prayed for a miracle. I was convinced I was going to die.’
After another fatal shooting, he was finally rescued by Israeli security forces.
Dr. Tarek says: “I have dedicated my entire life to helping others and I had to involuntarily witness this terrible massacre that was taking place before my eyes and I could do nothing about it.”
“It was terrible.”