We knew we had to go to the safe room, but we weren’t worried because it happened all the time. We’re kind of used to being bombed every few months. But this time, we understood really fast that it’s something else. We got in the shelter room and we have four kids. After that, we started getting messages from people crying to help. There were three people in my house, one young woman and two men. They started to try to open the door handle. There is no lock on the door on the safe room. It’s supposed to shelter us from bombs, not people. And my husband held the handle and me and the four kids and the dog were hiding in a corner. They were in my house eating. They watched TV. They watched a show on Netflix. They knew we were inside, and for 12 hours, we sat and waited for them to get in and kill us all. The kids were so quiet. They were so afraid. They were whispering, “Mom, I’m afraid.” “Mom, I’m hungry.” “Mom, what are the bad guys doing here? Why do they want to kill us?” And I told my husband, “If you can’t hold on anymore,” I told him, “Take your weapon and shoot us in the head. Make it quick.” They gave us seven minutes to pack our stuff. They took us to safety, took us out of the apartment. We took a shirt and put it on my kids’ faces because I didn’t know. I didn’t want them to see bodies lying, and the kibbutz burned, and people they know lying in the streets. I live in Nir Oz my whole life and it was my worst nightmare that terrorist people will go in the kibbutz. But in my worst nightmares, I never imagined it can be so bad, and so cruel, and so humiliating. They wrote Arab notes on the walls, and it was like, “We own the place, not you.” My kids keep telling me, “Ma, where is Safta? How can we leave the kibbutz without Safta?” And, “Where’s Jhoni, and Tamari, and Omer?” And I need to keep on telling them that I don’t know, even though I do know. I knew my dad is dead. I knew he died. I was talking to him on WhatsApp, and when he didn’t answer, he told me his last words are going to be, “Give a hug to the kids. We’re fine. It’s going to be OK. It’s going to be over soon.”
