report
Hundreds of people from southern Israel have found refuge in a beach hotel near Tel Aviv. Volunteers bring clothes, food, toys – and listen to people who have been through terrible things.
Children playing ball, babies crawling on the floor, exhausted families resting next to strollers and bags: the lobby of the Daniel beach hotel, 15 minutes north of Tel Aviv in Herzliya, has become a refuge for hundreds of Israelis from communities around the Gaza Strip.
They fled from the Hamas terrorists and from the war. Above all, they are alive, says father of four Ariel Yifrah. On the morning of the attack, he saw five motorcycles with ten Hamas fighters driving into his kibbutz, and he hid in the bunker with his wife and daughters:
They started shooting and shouting in Arabic – the army didn’t come for seven hours. Neighbors sent me messages: ‘They’re in my house, they’re throwing grenades in so people will run out. They burn houses.’ They killed an entire family and kidnapped a family of five. women and children.
Ran 15 kilometers away from Hamas
Meanwhile, one of Ariel’s sons is at a rave party nearby. Hamas kills hundreds of people there. While Ariel is waiting in the bunker, his phone rings. It’s Ariel’s son: “‘Daddy, I’m running, they’re shooting at us.’ And I’m in the bunker. I said to him: ‘Hide, run from the bullets!'” Then the connection was disconnected. Five hours later the son called again. “He said he ran 15 kilometers to Netivot, someone gave him food, let him take a shower. I relaxed,” says Ariel.
Son now fights as a soldier
Then he heard that Hamas terrorists had held a gun to his other son’s head in a neighboring house, Ariel says. His son pushed the terrorist, made it into the bunker and kept the door closed for three hours. Ten people died in Kibbutz Nahal Oz and 13 were kidnapped.
With tears in his eyes, Ariel says he is proud that his son is now fighting as a soldier on the border with Gaza. He is sorry that innocent people are also dying there, but: “We have to defeat Hamas, then Hezbollah, then Iran. Otherwise it will happen here again and again. We can do it because Germany, the USA, England, everyone stand behind us.”
Lots of help and donations from volunteers
Sigal Givati, actually a start-up manager, now writes down on a list for the city of Herzliya what the people here need: food, water, sanitary items, an apartment where they can stay. The hotel offers discounted rates and a laundry service.
Volunteers bring clothes, toys, food and moral support, she says: “Our lives are at a standstill. Our country is at war. Israel is such a small country. Everyone knows someone who has been killed, kidnapped or injured. It’s a big trauma for us, because we learned as children: Yes, there was the Holocaust, but at least we are safe here in Israel. Now we have been hit hard in our own country.”
Can’t stand the detonations anymore
The willingness to help is great and a glimmer of hope, says Givati and turns to a family from Ashkelon. Salit Braha fled the city of 130,000 people near Gaza with her husband and two sons because she saw rockets in the sky but no sirens sounded. There is a rumor that Hamas hacked the city’s early warning system, she says.
She adds that she can no longer bear the detonations of the bombs from the Israeli fighter jets in Gaza: “My little son heard the bombings of our fighter jets in Gaza. He asked: ‘Mom, what are we doing to them, why are we doing this with whom?’ I said, ‘We don’t want that, we’ll call them to run out of the house.’ “I don’t want the people of Gaza to die. There are many innocent people there. But we have to do something against the Hamas terrorists.”
Stick together and be strong together
Braha says she also has friends who were killed by Hamas and turns to her 13-year-old son Liad. “There is no other country for us. This is the only country for us and we must be strong together now.”
She kisses her son on the head. She doesn’t know where she’s going to sleep tonight. The hotel is fully booked, but she doesn’t care, says Braha. She just wants the people of Israel to stick together – at least for the moment.