It took a few hours for the echoes of the Hamas attack to reach Migdal Oz. This Israeli religious colony in the West Bank, an area occupied by Israel in violation of international law since 1967, lies in the hollow of a plateau between Hebron and Jerusalem. When the first alarm sounded on October 7, it was decided to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah on the soccer field near the shelters so that the 150 believers could seek shelter.
In a street in the settlement of Sde Boaz, near Bethlehem (West Bank), November 5, 2023. LUCAS BARIOULET FOR “THE WORLD”
The “kitat konenout”, the citizen militia responsible for protecting the town, received its first briefing at 8 a.m. Then immediate mobilization orders were given to fathers and husbands. They quietly left the ceremony with their families as the sirens continued to wail. “It’s sad to say, but we’re used to missiles,” said Benjy Myers, 45, one of Migdal Oz’s rabbis and head of the colony’s civil intervention team. “And the news hit us,” Mr. Myers continues. Residents of Migdal Oz have relatives living on religious kibbutzim in the Gaza Strip, which has been affected by the Hamas attack. The astonishment gave way to fear.
“It was not the terrorism we knew. There were knife attacks, or even bulldozers, rockets… But that’s where this massacre happened in Israel, and on a level of barbarism that we have never seen before,” worries the rabbi, who has chosen to stay in the occupied West Bank to settle down. In the event of a disaster, it was necessary to reorganize defenses. Of seventy families, twenty-five saw some of their members – fathers, husbands, brothers – mobilized. In this colony the doors are always open and the windows are neither armored nor barred. The day after the attack, around 9 p.m., another alarm sounded: “Not the rockets. But that of terrorist infiltration,” says Mr. Myers. One person tried to cross the barrier south of the settlement, where Beit Fajjar, a Palestinian village, is less than a kilometer away. He managed to escape.
Benjy Myers, resident of the Israeli settlement of Migdal Oz (West Bank), November 5, 2023. In the background is the Palestinian village of Beit Fajjar. LUCAS BARIOULET FOR “THE WORLD”
Sara Bitane Brownstein, resident of the Israeli settlement of Migdal Oz (West Bank), November 5, 2023. LUCAS BARIOULET FOR “THE WORLD”
“We have been mobilizing ever since. And now we take Hamas seriously,” adds Sara Bitane Brownstein, another resident, 63. The members of Kitat Konenout were replaced. They received additional training to learn how to use a weapon. A unit of Israeli soldiers was deployed. The teams patrol day and night and firing positions have been set up. Mr. Myers himself was equipped with an assault rifle, which he found very inconvenient. But the fear remains. Palestinian workers can only return to the kibbutz if accompanied by a member of the security forces.
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