Bearing Witness [E06]-"Why did it take them 35 hours to come and get us?"
Amit Ades Bears Witness Of What Happened To Her Family & Kibbutz Hiding In A Safe Room In Their Home In Kibbutz Kfar Aza, As 50+ People Were Massacred On October 7th, 2023
Bearing Witness: The Profiles In Horror & Courage Series is a witness-by-witness rendition of what happened on October 7 and afterward.
I will be releasing these, one at a time, mixed in with the other posts from The View From Israel Newsletter.
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Many have forgotten or chosen to ignore what occurred on October 7 and afterward. And history demands these be recorded and put in the annals of the war. Additionally, many do not have the patience to go through YouTube videos and listen to the inane advertisements every 5 minutes. Or we turn our brains off. Perhaps, in writing, it will help.
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Amit Ades and her husband, Tomer, along with their three children under the age of 7, spent 35 hours in a safe room in their home on Kibbutz Kfar Aza during the Hamas attacks that killed 50 residents of their small community.
The Ades family has made it their mission to ensure no one ever forgets what happened that day.
Background:
Kfar Aza Massacre
On 7 October 2023, around 70 Hamas militants attacked Kfar Aza, a kibbutz about 3 kilometers (1.9 mi) from the border with the Gaza Strip, massacring residents and abducting several hostages.
The kibbutz had more than 700 residents before the attack, and it took two days for the Israel Defense Forces to regain complete control of the community. While the exact total of Israelis killed is yet unknown, as of 15 October, 52 were listed as dead, and a further 20 or more were missing.
The attack is notable for claims of brutality in the form of beheadings, dismemberment, and victims having been burned alive. Claims by Israeli media and government sources advancing that 40 babies had been decapitated went viral. While a massacre of civilians did occur, a few of the most lurid claims, including the baby decapitations, were later found to be false.
Evidence provided by Bituah Leumi, Israel’s national social security agency, showed that of the 46 civilians that were killed in Kfar Aza, the youngest was 14 years old.
[Amit]
My name is Amit Ades. I’m married to Tomer Ades, and we have three children: Ori is almost seven years old. Shir is five years old. He had his birthday that weekend. And Ellie, who is one year old and eight months old. I was born- I grew up in Israel in Reut, and we moved to Kfar Aza. Seven years ago, we had our first son. I work - maybe I should tell you- -but I work in Kibbutz Nirim, so I have lots of friends and family from there, which I also lost.
[Interviewer]
Can you take us back to the morning of October 7th? What woke you up, where were you, and how did you survive?
[Amit]
Yes, I woke up probably 15 minutes before everything started. My oldest son came to our bed and told me he couldn't sleep. So, I went with him to his bed and tried to sleep with him. After a few minutes, the first Tzeva Adom [Code Red] alarm was on, and my husband was in our bed with the babies. So, he didn't come. So, I went out to call him. I went inside, and he put her on her bed, and she was still asleep. But my oldest son was up.
At first, I thought it was... Until this time, we kept it from them, and they always slept during Tzeva Adom and stuff like that. So, it was like the first time he was really up. After the first alarm, Tomer, like he always does, went out and back to our room, and then the alarms came on and on. It was the worst I've ever been to; in 10 minutes, six hundred rockets were in the air.
That's what it sounded like. And I thought to myself, it can't be from the Gaza Strip. It must be from Syria or something. It's too... it's too much. So I wrote to my family and couldn't reach the Internet, so I wrote in my family WhatsApp group: "What's happening? Can someone tell me?"
And it was like 7, 10 minutes into the first alarm that I heard the first shooting. Began shooting, and it was very, very close. Like I knew it was just outside of our house. Our house is located just nearby. I don't know how to say it in English, but it is the place where they keep all the weapons, and also, it was where a lot of battles took place. So very, very, like 10 minutes into the event, we already heard guns just outside our window. So I sent my husband and told him I immediately understood it's a [Hebrew]. I sent my husband to shut the lights, ensure the doors were locked, and return inside. And he told me there was already light outside. And I said, So what? There are people outside also.
He went outside. I don't know what he did. And he came back, and immediately all the groups started, all the WhatsApp groups of the Kibbutz, the second hand, the moms, our friends, all the circles started to give tips, like how to lock the door. First, we thought, we keep the handle up, and it's up. And then someone said it's not true.
So, I asked Tomer to go outside, and we checked the theory and realized it was not true. You can't lock it. So, we started to think about how we lock the door, and we took part of the bed, like one of the roots, put it down, and tried to tie it. During that time, we got a message from friends that Aviv Baram, one of our friends, was just outside of our house. He got hurt, and he's bleeding, and if we can go outside and bring him inside. So Tomer was going — and all this time we have, we hear shooting just outside the house. So we don't know what to do.
So Tomer started looking for stuff to make a [Hebrew] like blood stopper. And we tried to reach [name], the only one who answered us. She tried to send forces, and he tried to go outside and drag him inside the house so we could help him. I begged him [Tomer] not to go, crying. He told me he wouldn’t be able to live with himself, knowing that he left a friend outside, not trying to help. And... and then he left.
And both of us, all the time since it started, had knives, like kitchen knives, but that's the best weapon we got. We kept it just at the room's entrance, like the closet, and the wall held it. So, he left, and I was standing in the front of the “mamad” [safe room] with the knife in my hand and the baby in the other hand, trying to keep her not crying so no one would hear us. And he went, and it felt like forever. And I don't want to yell at him to come back because I don’t want anyone to hear me, but then again, I want him. He’s very, very brave, or too brave. And I was, I feared, I fear that he will do anything stupid, so...
And then, after what took forever, he returned and told me I couldn't go to our neighbor's house— the one we share a wall with. There are many, many bad people. And I heard a lot of Arabic, and there are 15. And if I go, they will shoot me down. Afterward, or maybe just yesterday, he told me he did go outside. He went out to the grass and tried, but luckily, they were too busy fighting each other and didn't notice him. But since he told me that, I was very panicked, you know because I knew they were outside, we heard them like shooting, but just sharing a wall with us. So, I started texting and WhatsApp everyone I knew, which I could write like the community manager, the [Hebrew], which is dead. And no one answered. No one answered.
During that time, all the WhatsApp groups of the Kibbutz were like, “Come help me,” “They are right here,” “They are in my house,” and “Please come help.” “They burn the house down.” and no one, no one, there was no answer. At some point, my friend wrote, "Please, I'm panicking." "Please tell me that the army is here," because we felt, and I think, that's the worst feeling I had all that time. I felt abandoned like no one was there.
I kept messaging my friends, my friends from Kibbutz Be'eri, my friends from the Kibbutz, "Where is the Army? Where are they?" They are supposed to keep us safe. Where are they? I did it after 2 hours. I was like, okay, it's been 2 hours. Where are they? And you hear they are not there. You hear there is not. There is no fighting.
After 4 and 6 hours and every hour, I lost hope and felt abandoned. We've been to the "mamad” with only family for 35 hours. So, there were many, many different types of times we spent in the “mama.” Sometimes, they fought on our window. We could hear them. It's like 20, 20 centimeters of metal between us. I heard and knew where they were hiding because our house is full of bushes; it's an old house with many [unintelligible]. So I knew where they were standing; I heard shooting where they came out.
And my husband and I always keep changing looks because we don't want to scare the kids. But we were like... Some of the parts were shooting grenades, and kept hearing the [imitates the sound of a grenade landing] and one time it... it hit the “mamad” like the corner. I had already sent my parents goodbye messages. Like I said, they are right here. Nothing stops them from getting inside, and then I write a message from my friend that they shot a grenade at the "mamad," and my other friend, they'd shot a weapon under the [?], and it goes through. It's not stopping it. So, and we like it’s, it's now.
And as time passed, the battery ran out, and the cellular— like, [INTERVIEWER:] Reception. [Amit:] Reception went out. The electricity fell in our neighborhood around 4 or 5 p.m. the first day. In the first 2 hours, the kids watched some stuff on the tablets. Luckily, one of them downloaded the movie [SpongeBob] by accident, and they watched it eight times during all those hours. Every time we heard the shooting getting closer and closer, we told them to watch the movie so they would be less connected and less— also, it kept them quiet.
So, the first 2 hours after the electricity went out, our light was from my tablet. But then the tablet ran out of battery. So, we sent Tomer to look for some flashlights. So, we have... because it was dark, I never saw something darker than that. There was no light, like nothing, like dark that hurts your eyes. And they are little, they would be scared to death, like being in that dark. And, of course, we have so many flashlights, but none of them was found when we needed them. One was in the car, and one was outside the door, and then Tomer found a flashlight, and that was the light.
At that time, more or less in the evening, we lost every connection to the world, like we had no cellular reception. It could be good because it kept us from knowing what was happening to keep us safe. Tomer, who was in the Army as a combat soldier, kept telling me what was happening. Like he told me when I asked him why does it take so much time? He said to me that, and I don't know if it's true, but that's what he told me to keep me mentally safe or strong. He said to me that that's the most complicated situation the Army could get involved with, like civilians inside houses and trying to keep them safe, and probably there are hostages. And probably there are hostages, so it will take a lot of time. And I'm like, "How much time?" "5 hours?" He said, "No, it could take a long time.” “How much time? One day?” “It could take a long time, a few days. Be patient. It will be okay.” Or other stuff, he told me. I try, I keep trying. I was trying to make the children not be too loud. I was afraid they would, and I figured kids couldn’t whisper. They can only talk very loudly. So, I kept trying to say, please, whisper. We are hiding. Please whisper. I don't want us... don’t want the bad people to find us. Whisper, whisper, whisper.
And... On the second day, when it was quieter next to the house, we heard more fights in other spots. He told me, “Babe, they are not fighting civilians anymore. Don’t worry. They are fighting with the Army now. And don't worry, we don't need to be quiet anymore. They are not after us.”
Now, I know it's not true, but it's kept us, so you know, it's some sanity during all those hours. When the night came, we went to sleep. It was very, very, very hot in the room, and we had no oxygen. Our head hurts, and we feel very... So Tomer kept telling me we should open the door to keep some air inside. But every time we opened the door, the smell of war came inside, and it was very— You know, I was not a combat soldier, so I didn't know those smells. It was powerful and very out there, and I was afraid it was not good, but in the meantime, at least it had some oxygen.
So, we kept opening the doors for a few seconds, trying to keep the air coming inside. But at night we couldn't do it because we were afraid. So please close the door with all the stuff we made from wood to try to keep it. And then... and then I opened the window. The glass of the window because the rest of the window only isolated me from the noise. It doesn’t. It's not stopping anything, so...
[Interviewer]
Because a safety room has a metal window?
[Amit:]
We've had a metal window which we always close, every night we close it. Ever since we lived in Kfar Aza I, I never wanted to run and then do it, and we don't have a lot of time in Kfar Aza. It's usually about 5 seconds before you hear the— between the Tzeva Adom alarm and the hit. So, I shut down mentally every night before they go to sleep. And then I know that if anything happens, at least I don’t have to do that and run there. And the kids always sleep there. So, at night, I kept — I slept with my son on the bed. It is just under the window, and I kept it open like a glass window so we have some oxygen. And he told me, should we do turns on like keeping guard? And I, I didn't know what to do. Like how, how could I sit there? Like so many hours? We went to sleep kind of early because it was dark. And what would we have to do? So, we slept around 8 when the kids went to sleep. We didn't have a connection anymore, so... We went to sleep. Before we went to sleep, Tomer put on— we have two exits from the house, so he put a lot of chairs and sofas, and on top of everything, he put all of the pots we have. So, if anyone enters the house, we hear the pots falling, and like hearing the sound and we know someone is inside, then we have enough time to run and fight on the door with them.
And so, we slept the night, and then when the morning came, it was very hard to believe that no one had come. No one, no one came. And we still hear every 1 hour, 2 hours like the bomber just outside the window, [Imitates gunfire] So we know they are still there, and no one comes. And we do in the morning. That morning, the second morning, was my son's birthday.
[Interviewer]
Sunday morning?
[Amit]
Sunday morning was my son's birthday, and Tomer was very, very he wanted him to have a birthday. We were supposed to celebrate with all the family in the woods on Saturday. So, we had everything ready. The food we ate, like a pot of jachnun1 and fruits and snacks. So that's what we ate— I didn't have a lot of appetite. Still, the children ate on the first and second day. Still, it was really hard for him and crucial for Tomer that we celebrate Shir’s birthday. Hence, he went outside the house to the garden because that's the only place we have a lighter in, to bring the lighter. And also, I told him, please don't do it, it's not that important. And he kept telling me, you know, the way we behave inside here now will be the result of our children’s mental health. So, we should be as normal as we can. And you know, it’s, and it's true. Now I know it's true. And also, I believed him inside, but it was very hard.
So, he went outside, brought a lighter, and we celebrated for him. We had a cake in the kitchen because it was ready for the birthday. And in Kfar Aza, there is a special song for a birthday. They only do it in Kfar Aza, and we sang him the song, and he made a wish, which is I will send you the photo because it's so touching. You see the hope on his face, and we give him the small presents we got for the children for their birthday in the woods. And after we looked for a flashlight for 2 hours. I didn't. I didn’t remember. But we had small flashlights in the present. And in the morning, it was a little bit more quiet next to our house.
After only 1 or 2 hours, we heard the bombers were still outside. But I don't know if they were wounded or... they only did like [imitates gunshots] 1 or 2 hours and then shot back, and I heard it was calmer than the day before. And at some point, around 10 in the morning, on the second day, I was like, I won’t die like this.
And because I was wearing underwear and a kind of tank top, the underwear was torn, and I don't know. So, I said, I'm not going to die like this, and I'm not going to be found like this by soldiers. And I was, I, I, I smelled like fear. You know, I sweat of fear. So, Tomer convinced me that it was quieter and I could go to the toilet because we always had a pot in the room that we used for the toilet. Tomer is very, like, organized. This is the bathroom on one side of the room. This is the kitchen or the eating area. He kept it every 2 and 3 hours, took the bath out, cleaned it, and returned it. Whenever he went out to clean the pot and spilled it into the toilet, I said, " Don't flush the water, okay? And then he went out, and I heard him flushing and yelling at me, “Sorry, it’s a habit!”
So, on the second morning, it was another day like this. You know, no one is coming. I forgot to say that on the first day, we heard the soldiers. In the evening and afternoon, we listened to the soldiers speaking in Hebrew outside of the window, saying, [Hebrew], like “Settle here.” And Tomer knocked on the “mamad” and said, “We are here, we are here.” And they didn't answer, but they were still fighting with the bombers.
So we didn't know who was outside. And it was a bit scary to open and look and maybe get shot or something. Then, on the second day, when it was a little bit quieter, I went to our room, which is the most unsafe place in the house because it’s temporarily built. So if they even shoot it, it's going to go through.
And I changed my underwear, put some pants on, and a bra, and I cleaned my, with wipers, trying to clean myself a little bit. And I took some of the baby clothes, which were in our room. And I tried to sneak outside of the window because we already knew from the messages in the groups of the day before that right, right outside of our house, there was an extensive combat of the [Hebrew] of the first power from inside the Kibbutz that's supposed to react first.
I tried to see if I could see them because it was ten meters outside the window, and I couldn't see anything and was a little bit scared. I returned inside the "mamad," Tomer was making boiled eggs because I didn't know he was making boiled eggs for lunch. And suddenly, we hear it's very close again, like very, very close. And it was around 2, something like that, in the afternoon.
[Interviewer]
So, you’ve been there 24 hours, if it had been 6 a.m.
[Amit:]
We were in there 30 hours at that time, or 32 hours already. And he went and put the eggs, and they were already. I suddenly heard them on the pot, like [imitates boiling eggs] dancing. Then, suddenly, they started shooting right outside our house. So, he came back running inside. The "mamad,” and we closed the door and everything like we were ready. And then, I told him about the eggs. I was, I don't know. I feared the fire would go out or they would hear the [Imitates boiling egg sound]. So I said, please go and turn it off so I won’t be scared. And so, he was crawling there, turning it back and off.
And then they were, really, really shooting very strong around our house. He came back running inside. We closed everything around, and both of us held the knives, and he held the door. And then we heard all the pots that he put falling. I told him, "Tomer, they're here." he said, "Yes." "Take the kids and go outside of the window." I’m like, I won’t make it on time. The baby is sleeping on the bed. The boys are watching a movie on the other side of the room, and the window is there, and they're already inside the house. It's like, it's not a big house. And he tells He says, “Listen to me and take the children!” “Go outside of the window.” And I'm like, “I won’t make it, Tomer.”
We heard them. They shot our house. You know, I can't really... We knew it was the end. And then they came to the door of the "mamad," and they were fighting with us on the door of the "mamad," we were fighting and fighting. And then they released, and we heard them say "Naki," which is “clean.” And we understand it's soldiers. It's not the bombers. And they start yelling, “We are here!” “We are Israelis. We are here.” And they’re like, “Who are you?!” And then we’re like, “Tomer and Amit!”
“Tomer and Amit.” “What is your parent's name?” “Where are you from?” And we started yelling, “Shlosh Esre, Shlosh Esre” [Hebrew for the number 13], which was the passcode we had for the unit more than 24 hours ago. And, and they were like, we are opening the door. You have nothing in your hands. We both like [imitates knife drop] tossing the knives, and they opened the door. We were like raising our hands, and you see, there are, I don't know, 20 soldiers, like aiming, and Tomer tells them, “Why like this?” So, they say there are many, many bodies outside of your house and a lot of blood. And we were sure that bombers were hiding inside your house.
So, they were very cute soldiers, you know, they say, "We see someone has a birthday," because, in our family, we hang all these decorations in the house every birthday at night. We did it, but he didn't even see it because they didn't leave the “mamad” for those two days. So, they started singing Happy Birthday and stuff. And my kids are in shock. They look at the soldiers; they are very well-equipped. They are armed with guns, and they tell us in 15 minutes or so you will have like... uh... an armed physical that can take you out, and you can organize some stuff that you want to take with you. And when we say you should be ready to leave.
Out of the house, even before they entered the house, Tomer took me to see the damage we had before the soldier came in shooting. A lot of shooting came from the windows and the doors. So we saw the bullets that were from the back door through the, through our through the living room to our, to the parent's unit, through my closet, And then we saw the bullets and their routes, and they all stopped. We couldn't find the [INTERVIEWER:] The shells. [Amit] Yeah, but we saw all the routes, and it all stopped just a second before the “mamad,” like our house is like a puzzle. And after they came, it took, like, more than an hour till we went out because they kept telling us, sorry, they are being held, they are still fighting around the house, and we don't want to keep- to get you out when it’s not safe. So, a few more minutes.
All the soldiers were at every one of our windows like, you know, laying and aiming. So it was still not... they are more securing us. I asked them if the kids could go out and see the house because I wanted them not to be shocked when we left the house and were being held, like delayed. So I want them to see because all the desks were broken and all the walls were like with the bullets, you know? So I took them out. I don't know how much they realized out of it.
I can't remember what I saw, like after when I tried to see. To think, if I saw our kitchen, like my brain, shut the image down. So then, after an hour or so, they took us. They told us, we will take you through your neighbor's house like we can't go to the main road because it's too dangerous. So, we go from house to house to the [unintelligible]. So, we went from our neighbors to Sharon and Shachar’s house. And there we met our next-door neighbors from the other side, Mazi and two of her boys, and her husband was killed. We realized later. And we met Sharon with her girls, and her husband was killed, we heard later. And we, we hugged and everything. And no, we didn't know what was happening with each other because we had no connection. And it felt like everyone was dead.
So, they took us couple by couple to the car because it was still very loud around us, and they were afraid. So, they kept us safe, like the soldiers, with their bodies, couples, to that. Then they told us there was no room for everyone, but everyone would get inside. We went inside, and they had already shut the door. Then we heard them yelling, “Wait! Wait!” “There are... there is another lady. Wait, wait.”
And then Pauli with her granddaughter came. Pauli is our best friend's mom, and we didn't know what was happening to him. And she went in that car and said, "What will happen with Nadav?" “What will happen with Nadav?” She was crying. I don't know. We were still thinking maybe something is okay, you know. So basically, on our “ride” out of there, all of our neighbors lost loved ones. Everyone.
When we arrived at the gas station, the first safe point, we were the last to get out of Kfar Aza alive. So a lot of people... We saw Tomer's mom there. She was waiting. She got out hours before, and she was waiting to see us. She was the first one we saw, and we were very worried about her because she was alone in the “mamad” the whole time. And she was also— she also sent us photos before of a lot of shooting inside our house, of the holes.
And then the second person we saw was Yoni, Yoni Peled, who lost... lost both of his parents and his little brother.
[Interviewer]
How old is he?
[Amit]
Yoni? Probably around 33. I’d say.
And he told me, “Amit, go online now.” “Many WhatsApp groups... because everyone thinks you’re dead.” Like, they said you are dead, so go now and say you are out. And I only wanted to find my parents because I already said goodbye to them, and I knew what they were thinking. And it's been 24 hours since I sent the goodbye from them, you know. So I put my phone outside of Airplane mode, and the messages didn't stop getting, and I couldn't touch the phone. It was [imitates texts].
So I gave the phone to Yoni and told him to do whatever you wanted, and I took the phone from Tamir. Tamir Solomon, who lost his brother, asked him to call my parents. And I did call my parents, and I couldn't recognize them. They were so, they were crying so bad. And I was like, “Who is it?” My mom says, “It's Mom.” And I'm like, “No, who is it?" I couldn't recognize her and said, “Mom, we're all okay.” She was like, “All of you okay?” “Yes, Mom, all of us okay.” And she started going, name by name. “Tomer is okay?” “Ori is okay? Shir is okay? Ellie is okay?” then I asked Tomer to send her a photo because I heard in her voice that she was not... she didn't believe me. So he sent the photo and inside the shop there, I don’t know what to call it, it was very hard to be. It smells like death. Like a lot of people came there with urine and other stuff, so it was very, very bad smelling. And also the shop was like everyone took whatever they wanted. So it was full of garbage, and all the soldiers were sleeping on the floor on toilet paper. And so it was tough to be inside. So I kept going outside with Ellie and my baby because, finally, she could walk around.
But Tomer kept giving her back to me and telling me to go inside, and I didn't understand why. Afterward, he told me that on our sides, there were big trucks with tons of bodies, and they were like putting bodies inside, like on the back. And he didn't want us to see it, but I was there, and my brain... I didn't see it. I didn't understand what he wanted from me, like why he kept sending me back inside. That's the end of the story, but... but in so many ways, it's only the beginning. My mom and dad were like, It's the end for us. You survive.
But what we've been through since then and now, a week and a half later, like when we got out, I still have hope. Everything — everyone is like us, you know? But now I know. Everyone I know. We lost so many friends, all of our neighbors, our house, and the community. I lost faith in people. Like in the humankind, you know, how could they do this stuff? A loss of security in our country. They should— they should’ve kept us safe. Why did it take them 35 hours to come and get us?
I always say they can live for us. And when people ask me, because I'm not there originally, and people ask me, how can you live in Kfar Aza? And I kept telling them, you know what? If something happens and I can go in the car with the kids, I can pack in 5 minutes, go to my parents in Tel Aviv, and keep them mentally safe. I was — I thought, you know, it's really not safe to live there. It's just not mentally safe because everyone has PTSD. So if I keep going out whenever anything starts, and they and they don't go through this, the Tzeva Adom, then I'm okay. But I don't think I can ever have faith in living knowing what could happen.
[Interviewer]
Your husband is amazing. What did he do in the Army? That he was so — had the right mindset and knew how to manage it.
[Amit]
You know he was in the Nahal, like a combat soldier. But also for him, if you listen to his story, he will tell you a different story. He felt all the time like he was supposed to go out there and, you know, join them and fight with them. And when everything started, he got tzav shmoneh, [emergency IDF call-up order] like to go to the Army. And he told me, when we leave here, I'm going to the Army. He wanted to take his uniform when the soldiers told us to take some stuff. I had to ask him to wait one week before you go. I need you. I can’t be alone right now with the children. But for him, it’s very different. First, he told me there was stuff I didn't know he did outside. You know, because I wouldn’t let him.
[Interviewer]
He was armed?
[Amit]
No... just with a knife. At some moment, I think it's good that he didn't have a weapon because then he would have had more courage to go outside to try to bring our friends inside, and we had no chance. Like if they saw him, they'd kill him, and they’d come for us also. I don't know. It's so random. Like, the luck we had. It’s very random. The neighbor was just in front of us, like a grandma to my kids. You know, she was gone. You know, all of our neighbors, just outside of our house.
It was very random. Like, I don't have any way I can explain it.
[Interviewer]
I'm sure it's one of the hardest things to try and understand. I’m sure it’s— Your husband made some amazing decisions.
[Amit]
Yeah, now that our children have, I know some children in other houses haven't talked for two days. And I know that I know that my parents — my children couldn’t stop fighting. I know it's... I'm happy for it, you know? I'm saying, okay, then maybe they will go out normal from this.
[Interviewer]
Thank you.
The Story From The Press: 23
The Ades family story
While many of those victims are not able to share their stories, the Ades family has made it their mission to ensure no one ever forgets what happened that day.
“We live in a kibbutz in Israel,” Amit said. “For me, it was the best way to raise my kids. It’s a place that is very simple. Kids can walk barefoot.
“The kibbutz is 95 percent heaven and 5 percent hell since we are near the Gaza Strip. Once every six months, we would have missile attacks. But we would leave the house until it was over.”
But on Oct. 7, Amit and Tomer knew something was different.
“It started at 6:30 in the morning. That was when the first alarm came on,” she said. “It was different this time. It kept coming on and on. I thought it was coming from Syria. Then we heard the first gunshots outside our house.”
The next 36 hours
The following 36 hours were quite treacherous and mind-numbing for the Ades family. Because of the suddenness of the attack so early in the morning, they were unprepared for what awaited them.
They spent most of their time holed up in their safe room, which did not have a lock on the door nor was it bulletproof. That room was only about 5 square feet, according to Amit. The only food they could eat was a birthday cake they made for their son Shir, who turned 5 on Oct. 7.
“Usually, we use it as a sleeping room,” Amit said about the safe room. “Usually we have five seconds to get inside (when something happens). There are two beds, a closet and that’s it. It’s not big at all. There was no food, no water, no toilets in the safe room.”
The only means of communication for the kibbutz community of 840 people was their cell phones and WhatsApp on those phones.
“We had no one to call for help,” Amit said. “We started using WhatsApp to talk to our neighbors. Some people wrote, ‘They are at our house. Please help us. Someone showed a WhatsApp video of trucks coming through the fence with guns and weapons.”
One person wrote that her husband was wounded just outside of our house, Amit added. “She asked if we could come out and save him,” she said. “I didn’t want him (Tomer) to go. My husband told me had to go and that he couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t.”
Unfortunately, that person died in their home. So Tomer shut off the lights so the children could not see the body, Amit said.
Someone wrote: “Why is no one coming? God, help. God.”
Those messages went on for hours, Amit recalled. “And no one responded. Then there was silence. They were killed.”
“No one was coming for two hours, four hours, then six hours, then nine hours, overnight,” Amit said.
Then, the most unimaginable happened.
“Some people started to send their locations on What’s App. At some point, the terrorists got people’s cell phones and sent terrible photos,” Amit said. “Then they followed the directions from the people where they live, and they killed them.”
Just how did the Ades family cope?
Amit described the desperation: “It was very long. You can’t cry because there are people around you. We didn’t want others to panic around us if we panicked. You’re just surviving. You have to function and survive until it’s over. I thought there were sometimes when I didn’t think we would make it, when they took the cell reception off.
When the morning came after the attacks, it was our son’s actual birthday date. We brought the cake inside, sang Happy Birthday, and he made a wish. I didn’t leave the room at all.”
The rescue
Early Sunday, Tomer said it was time to eat some real food. So, he began to boil some eggs. While he was doing that, the shooting began again, and it was getting louder and louder, Amit said.
They went back into the safe room for cover and started hearing shooting right outside the front door. Then they heard someone yell “clear,” like soldiers do.
Amit and Tomer were still afraid it was the terrorists looking to finish them off. “People have told us that some of the terrorists dressed up like the IDF and shot you,” Amit said, referring to the soldiers knocking on the safe room door.
“We told them we’re Israelis behind the door,” she said. “They asked if we had IDs. They were at least as shocked as we were. They said that there was lots of blood on the front yard. And no one heard from us. They thought we were dead.”
After that, about 15 soldiers searched their homes for possible terrorists. They wound up staying behind to protect the home.
“A soldier was protecting us by standing guard at our window,” Amit said. “They sang happy birthday to our son.”
The video of the interview:
This series is also available on The View From Israel Website.
Jachnun or Jahnun is a Yemenite Jewish pastry, Jachnun. (2023, November 12th). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jachnun
https://www.riverdalepress.com/stories/a-story-of-survival-during-oct-7-attack,135394?
https://jewishlink.news/kfar-aza-survivor-speaks-in-new-rochelle/
Thank you for documenting their stories. The world must be bombarded with these stories as they have already forgotten about Oct. 7.
It is so heartbreaking what these families went through. Stepping outside your front door and seeing dead neighbors everywhere ( women, children, grandparents etc just mowed down indiscriminately by barbarian hordes). They need our love and support Thank you Ted for allowing us to bear witness to these atrocities with them.