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Israeli Noam Cohen (19) thought he was safe after a massacre by the Islamist Hamas. But the narrow shelter in which he hid with about twenty festival visitors becomes a death trap.
“It became clear to us that the terrorists wanted us here, completely at our mercy,” Cohen says. Several grenades were thrown into the packed bunker. He remembers shots, blood and body parts. “I saw people explode next to me, over and over again, body parts everywhere.” He shows short videos documenting the horror.
Hundreds of attackers from the Islamist Hamas opened fire on Saturday at a rave party in the border area with the Gaza Strip, driving the young revelers into a shelter at a bus stop.
He was in the back and that saved him. “I could hide under the corpses; they became a human shield,” he says. After about ten hours he was found and taken to hospital. Of the more than twenty festival visitors who were in the bunker, at most three or four came out alive. “I don’t know how I survived.”
150 people kidnapped to the Gaza Strip
In total, Hamas killed more than 1,000 civilians that day, including about 260 at the festival alone, paramedics said. Dozens of others were abducted to the Gaza Strip.
Apparently 38-year-old Shiran is among those kidnapped. “Keep running,” were the last words her husband Nathan shouted to her before he collapsed. The two of them came to watch the main act at the Sunrise Festival, he says on the phone from the hospital. “Then hundreds of terrorists came from all sides and chased us.”
They initially fled in a car, but had to continue on foot. “The street was completely closed, shots were fired everywhere, we could only walk,” says the father of three in a soft voice. There were two other women in the car; he couldn’t remember what happened to them. Everything is blurry. Two terrorists shot at him from the air with hang gliders and he collapsed. It was the last time he saw his wife disappear into the crowd.
According to his own statements, he waited on the sandy ground in the hot Negev desert for four hours, as if he were dead, and watched as people around him were burned alive by the attackers in cars. “There are images of burned bodies in my head,” Nathan says. He doesn’t know where his wife is now. However, he assumes that she was kidnapped to the Gaza Strip along with about 150 other people.
“There were trucks full of bodies”
A volunteer from Zaka’s rescue service speaks of miles of destruction in the border area after the massacre. In addition to the festival, the attackers caused a massacre in several Israeli cities. “Such a mass of corpses, a corpse and another corpse and another corpse,” says Avigdor Stern. The 39-year-old is one of hundreds of rescue service volunteers who have been helping for days to fully recover the dead and thus pay their last respects.
There were so many that the body bags were not enough. They had to be redeemed from all over Israel. “There were trucks full of bodies,” Stern says, describing the scenes at the scene.
He and his colleagues had seen a lot: tsunami victims, earthquakes, accidents, attacks, but this dimension was one that no one had expected. “Women, men, children, babies, I can’t even explain it,” the helper says, showing a photo of a small body bag. It has ‘Baby’ written on it.
In the Jewish faith, every body part must be buried, Stern explains. This is how people are paid their last respects. This is Zaka’s job. “We knew we couldn’t stop, we knew we had to do it now.”
He was in the synagogue when he heard about the worst massacre in Israeli history. Actually, he wanted to celebrate the Jewish holiday Simchat Torah (Joy of the Torah). “But we couldn’t dance, we just cried,” he says. After the holidays, he and his colleagues went to the villages in the border area. “In that moment, our lives changed forever.”
Israel is in shock
The horrors of the atrocities touch the people of Israel to the depths of their hearts. The country responds with air strikes on the densely populated coastal strip. About 300,000 reservists from the country of 10 million inhabitants were mobilized. A ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, which could also cause major losses for the Israeli army, could be imminent. “My husband currently works 24/7 in the army,” says Michal H.
She tries to support the soldiers remotely as best as possible with volunteers. There is a fundraiser for military personnel at school. “Everyone is trying to do their part, everyone is trying to help,” says Michal. She cannot imagine what the people in the border area have to endure. “Mothers were raped, children were murdered and terrible war crimes took place.” She tries to protect her three children from the horror. Social networking is currently not allowed. The fear that Hamas could publish even more disturbing videos of horror and hostage taking is too great. (SDA)
Source: Blick
I am Amelia James, a passionate journalist with a deep-rooted interest in current affairs. I have more than five years of experience in the media industry, working both as an author and editor for 24 Instant News. My main focus lies in international news, particularly regional conflicts and political issues around the world.
