Israel
Nahal Oz is located just a few meters from Gaza. The gunmen showed no mercy, killing, kidnapping and setting fires to smoke people out of their safe spaces
Nahal Oz, a kibbutz in southern Israel where about 400 people live, is so close to the Gaza Strip that the nearest Palestinian house in Sajaiya is just 600 meters away. Despite the high-tech fences and buffer zone that separates them, neighbors can still see each other hanging their laundry on the line.
Until the late 1980s, older members of Nahal Oz regularly drove a few miles west to shop in Gaza City’s markets, eat the enclave’s famous seafood, or walk the Mediterranean coast. Many still have friends in Gaza. Despite the Israeli blockade in 2007, they remained in touch through calls and WhatsApp messages after the militant group Hamas took control of the area.
Recently, the community began work on a visitor center for those interested in learning more about the kibbutz ethos of sustainability and a pastoral way of life. A listing on a kibbutzim website asked whether the neighbors from Sajaiya might also come to visit one day. After the events of the last three days, in which Hamas militants slaughtered more than 700 Israelis in 20 locations in the south of the country, including Nahal Oz, it is unlikely that the old friends will ever be able to see each other again.
How did Hamas manage to carry out its rampage in southern Israel?
Nadav Peretz and his partner Eli Dudaei, both 42, moved from Tel Aviv to Nahal Oz seven years ago in search of a more relaxed life. They knew there were risks living near territory controlled by violent extremists, but rockets sometimes struck near their old home, Israel’s economic capital. Going into the safe room for a few minutes when an air raid siren goes off is part of life on the kibbutz. There are no bomb shelters for the neighbors in Sajaiya.
Early Saturday morning, after the sirens rang for the first time, the crack of pistol and machine gun shots and the cracks of rocket-propelled grenades also began to break the early morning silence.
“It was about 35 minutes after the first siren. We train for something like this, we practice, the whole community knows what to do; It was scary, but I guess everyone went back to the safe rooms. But over time, we realized that the army had not come to help,” said Dudaei, a primary school teacher.
“These fences that are meters deep underground that we spend millions on. They didn’t help.”
Now safe in Peretz’s childhood home in Beersheba, the couple must piece together the day that changed their lives and Israel forever.
Heavy rocket fire from Gaza hit southern and central Israel throughout Monday, the third day of a conflict not expected to be as large in the region since the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Israel has responded to Hamas’ surprise offensive with massive bombings and relentless attacks on Gaza, promising to hit “thousands” of targets. About 500 people in the tiny, crowded strip died in the bombings.
At the Soroka Medical Center in the southern city of Beersheba, rescue planes, as well as unmarked and military helicopters, took off and landed in the complex’s large central garden. Each time, half a dozen medics rushed toward them, meeting soldiers lifting stretchers filled with wounded comrades before setting off again.
Israeli soldiers carry a wounded soldier at Soroka Hospital in Beersheba. Photo: Quique Kierszenbaum
With fighting still ongoing, it is still unclear how many people are dead or missing around Israel. In Nahal Oz, Peretz and Dudaei are certain that at least two entire families were killed and two others were kidnapped and taken to Gaza as hostages. In a video filmed by a Hamas gunman and livestreamed on social media at the time, a little girl and boy from the kibbutz can be seen sobbing on the kitchen floor of their home, shocked by their sister’s death .
When the shooting began, Peretz and Dudaei picked up their dog, Mack, and returned to the safe room in their small bungalow. They put a blanket on the floor to muffle the sound of dogs’ paws on the hardwood floor. Normally, they said, he barks a lot during air raids, but this time he remained calm throughout the ordeal.
Dozens of Hamas fighters had flooded the tiny kibbutz in the first wave of what the group’s leaders called “Operation al-Aqsa Storm,” shooting people they trapped outside and then breaking into houses and lighting fires to kill them frightened families to smoke out of their safe spaces.
“We didn’t tell each other, but at some point it occurred to both of us that if he started barking, we would have to shut him up,” Peretz said. None of them expressed the unspoken understanding that they might have to suffocate him.
Panicked messages quickly poured into Nahal Oz’s WhatsApp group, said Peretz, who runs the kibbutz’s dairy – now destroyed. “The messages said, ‘Please save us,’ ‘Please send the army,’ ‘They are killing us,’ ‘They are in my house,’ some of them said goodbye,” he said. “When we heard the men in the garden, I also sent messages to my mother and told her I loved her.
“It took us a while to find out that they had taken some people’s phones and were telling them in Hebrew that it was safe to come out. Then they killed more.”
Dudaei began to cry and said, “I was supposed to be the first responder at the kibbutz and I couldn’t help them. There’s a weapons cache two meters from our house and I couldn’t do anything about it.”
‘They’re just babies’: Israeli relatives of hostages plead for help
As darkness set in on the third day of the new conflict, with heavy fighting still ongoing in around 10 locations, patches of warm rain, rare in this desert climate, began to fall.
To the west, over the Mediterranean, it was hard to tell what was lightning and what was rocket fire and flashes of light from Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system. Only army vehicles with tanks and rocket batteries were on the deserted streets. On Monday it was said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had informed Joe Biden that a ground offensive against Hamas was imminent.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen next,” Peretz said. “People in Gaza are now suffering just as much as in Israel. We must rebuild our lives, rebuild our community and return to the kibbutz. One day we will welcome visitors again.”
{{#Ticker}}
{{top left}}
{{bottom left}}
{{top right}}
{{bottom right}}
{{#goalExceededMarkerPercentage}}{{/goalExceededMarkerPercentage}}{{/ticker}}
{{Headline}}
{{#paragraphs}}
{{.}}
{{/paragraphs}}{{highlightedText}}
{{#choiceCards}}{{/choiceCards}}We will be in touch to remind you to contribute. Watch for a message in your inbox. If you have any questions about contributing, please contact us.