“That was the last time I saw my son” Macron in Switzerland: the state visit in pictures

When Batsheva Yahalomi Cohen heard the first shots on October 7, she was still in her pajamas with her three children and her husband. They run to shelter in their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, just two kilometers from the Gaza Strip.

But the door that must protect the family from intruders cannot be closed. “We heard gunshots and Arabic shouts of ‘Allahu Akbar’. “It smelled like smoke and fire, it was scary,” Yahalomi Cohen remembers the moment. Her voice trembles, just like the rest of her slim body. As she talks, she hides her hands under the table.

However, the young woman repeatedly forces herself to look the media representatives straight in the eye. Because she has something she’s fighting for: “I’m here to ask for help,” she says. Help for her husband Ohad and her twelve-year-old son Eitan. The terrorist organization Hamas kidnapped them and about 240 other people to Gaza more than 40 days ago. Yahalomi Cohen managed to escape with her two daughters, but she says she is experiencing a nightmare that will never end.

Together with two other relatives of Israeli hostages, she came to Berlin on Wednesday to speak to politicians in Germany and tell her story. The Konrad Adenauer Foundation, affiliated with the CDU, organized the exchange.

No rescue, no way out

“Ohad is a very strong man, a hero, just like Iron Man,” Yahalomi Cohen told t-online, emphasizing each word individually. The two met during their studies and later became a couple. When the shelter door would not close and the family continued to hear shots and screams, Ohad decided to leave the room after about two hours and keep the door closed to his family from the outside. “Around 10 a.m., the terrorists broke into our house and shot Ohad,” reports Yahalomi Cohen.

Four armed terrorists entered the hideout. “I told my children to shout for the army to come, but no one came to save us,” says Yahalomi Cohen. ‘We had to go with the terrorists. My husband told me he loves us and that we should come with him.”

Ohad himself was seriously injured. His wife does not know how serious he is or whether he is still alive. When Ohad’s sister checked on him later – warned by Yahalomi Cohen – he was gone. The last message the family receives from him is to a friend. “He wrote to him that he was injured in his arm and leg, that he needed help, that these were our last minutes,” says Yahalomi Cohen.

In the meantime, they themselves were dragged out of the house by the terrorists. “They tried to film us. I told them to just take me and let my children go,” she says. But it didn’t help: Yahalomi Cohen was forced onto the motorcycle with her daughters (10 and 1.5 years old). “Luckily the baby was crying, so they gave him to me,” she says. The terrorists put her son Eitan on a second motorcycle. “It was only when I was driving that I saw that the entire kibbutz was on fire, it was a horror, there were terrorists everywhere.”

Last look at Eitan

After a short journey, the first Israeli tanks arrived in the area to retake the kibbutz. The terrorists’ motorcycles scattered – and the motorcycle with Eitan drove further and further away from the one on which Yahalomi Cohen was sitting with her daughters. “That was the last time I saw my son. They drove him on a motorcycle towards Gaza,” says Yahalomi Cohen. She has lived in uncertainty ever since.

‘I don’t know if he’s still alive; He doesn’t know if we’re still alive. Maybe he thinks he no longer has any family to return to,” she says in an interview with t-online. Like a mantra, she repeats over and over again: “No child should be part of this war. No child should be without a mother,” and, “The children must be set free first.”

In her dreams, according to the mother, her twelve-year-old son takes care of the other children who are being held hostage; according to official information, there are 34. When he was still at home, he liked to do it, “the children loved him,” his mother tells t-online. When she talks about Eitan, she smiles. He was a football fan – “no, he is,” Yahalomi Cohen corrects himself – not only sporty, but also very smart. He was selected by the Ministry of Education for an “Excellence Program” and he also enjoys reading – especially “Percey Jackson”. She ordered the new edition, but could no longer give it to her. Now she carries the book with her. “I hope he can read it soon,” says the mother.

On the run

She herself anticipated the moment when the terrorists were surprised by the Israeli tanks and fled with her daughters. “We just ran through the fields in our pajamas,” she says. After a while she was so exhausted that she could no longer run any further. “I told my daughter we have to lie down so the terrorists don’t see us,” Yahalomi Cohen said. They tried to hide under a blanket but were discovered.

“Two terrorists wanted us to go to Gaza with them, but I refused.” Seeing that the Hamas terrorists were unarmed, they once again ran for their lives. “I wanted it to stop, but it didn’t stop,” Yahalomi Cohen said. It was only hours later, back at the kibbutz, that she met the Israeli army and was able to contact Ohad’s sister via a soldier’s phone. “That was the first time I cried,” Yahalomi Cohen said.

But not for long. She quickly understood that she had to be strong for her two daughters. «They don’t have the privilege of being able to do anything, so I have to fight for them and for them [Ohad und Eitan] bring it back,” says Yahalomi Cohen. In the long run, she wants peace. “I hope we can come out of this horror and find a way to grow from it,” said Yahalomi Cohen.

Anger and the desire for peace

Avihai Brodutch, who came to Berlin from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, thinks the same as you. His wife Hagar, along with their three children Ofri (10), Yuval (8) and Uriah (4), were kidnapped by the Hamas terrorists, as well as the little girl next door Abigail. “When I went outside to help, I saw a girl, my friend’s daughter,” Brodutch said. “She was covered in blood. “Later I realized it was her father’s blood,” Brodutch said. Like about twenty other children, Abigail lost her parents in the Hamas attack.

After Brodutch took her to his family’s shelter, he went to defend his kibbutz. He stayed in touch with Hagar via text messages until contact was lost. “The last message I got from her was, ‘Someone’s coming to the house,’” Brodutch said. More than forty days have passed since then. No bodies were found in the house, no traces of violence, Brodutch’s car has disappeared, so it is believed that the terrorists stole it, like other cars in the kibbutz – and kidnapped Hagar, Ofri, Yuval and Uriah.

“I’m angry,” Brodutch says, running his hand over the back of his head. “All Israelis know the history of the Holocaust,” he says. Members of his family also experienced the expulsion and Shoah against the Jews by the National Socialists. “And so that this does not happen again, Israel was created, but I regret to say: it happened again, on Israeli territory,” Brodutch said. He adds that he doesn’t want to blame anyone for this, not even the Palestinians.

He had already campaigned for a peacetime end to the conflict in the Middle East. “From my bedroom window I could look at the Gaza Strip and never longed for war, but for peace,” Brodutch said. Even now he clings to this wish. First of all, he wants his family back. But then he had a second wish: “I want peace for both sides. If this war does not end, we will continue to attack each other. But the violence must end, that is clear.” Perhaps in the long run, Brodutch says, both sides could find a way to commemorate those who died in peace.

No photo stays

Gilad Korngold doesn’t want to think about it for the time being. When he sees the photos of his family in the press conference room, he bursts into tears and has to calm down. When asked about a possible end to the violence, he says it must end, but his tone is bitter. “I don’t understand it,” Korngold says. “These terrorists live on the most beautiful beach in the world, but they come into our homes,” he says before his voice fades away. “Right now I just want my family back,” he catches himself.

His son Tal, his daughter-in-law Adi and two grandchildren Nave (8) and Yahel (3) were in Kibbutz Be’eri when Hamas attacked. Adi’s parents and her aunt Sharon with her son Noam (12) were also there. Adi’s father was killed by the terrorists, and the rest of the family is believed to be held hostage in Gaza.

Like pieces of a puzzle, Korngold first put the clues together herself, and then together with the Israeli authorities: her house burned down. A neighbor saw Tal being led out of the house, tied up by terrorists. Adi’s father’s phone was later found in Gaza. No bodies or human remains were found in the rubble of the house. Her car? Missing – just like other hostages.

Korngold was at home when the attack took place on the family of his son, who also has German nationality. “It was my daughter-in-law’s birthday and my wife was baking a cake when we heard the alarm,” Korngold remembers. From the shelter he called his son, who, like the family of Batsheva Yahalomi Cohen, had not closed the door of the shelter.

He wanted to organize help. But his son Tal told him, “The Israeli army knows what to do, Dad. Let them do their job.” “But he didn’t realize that there was no army outside, but that it was the terrorists,” Korngold said, tears welling up in his eyes. Like the other family members, he now wants to keep the children safe first and then the rest of his family.

What will he do then? A photo of his son. “We took so many pictures of the kids, but we don’t have one picture of just my son,” he says. When they return, he wants to take pictures of his family every day. Also from Tal.