https://sputnikglobe.com/20231111/israeli-woman-who-lost-family-in-gaza-conflict-looks-back-at-dawn-of-hamas-attack-1114882600.html

Israeli Woman Who Lost Family in Gaza Conflict Looks Back at Dawn of Hamas Attack

Israeli Woman Who Lost Family in Gaza Conflict Looks Back at Dawn of Hamas Attack

Sputnik International

As thousands of civilians on both sides of the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip continue to perish in the ongoing military conflict, a resident from an Israeli town bordering Gaza shared with Sputnik her family’s ordeal during the initial attack that led to the quick escalation of violence in recent weeks.

2023-11-11T08:32+0000

2023-11-11T08:32+0000

2023-11-11T08:39+0000

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No Time for GoodbyeWhen Noa Ford was awaken by the sound of loud bangs in the early hours of October 7, what worried her most was the safety of her children, who happened to be camping outside with her husband. "In my kibbutz, we had an event for the community. All the kids were camping in tents with their fathers on the main lawn of the kibbutz. At around 6:30 a.m. [04:30 GMT], everything began and everything went boom. I was alone at my house without my kids and my husband. I was hysterical because my children were not with me. I was anxious to get my kids," Ford, 35, told Sputnik. Ford and her family lived in a kibbutz — which is the name for a local community in Israel — named Gvar'am, about 4.5 miles from the border with Gaza. The loud noise that woke Ford up was the sound of thousands of rockets fired into Israel by the Palestinian movement Hamas as part of a surprise attack. For the Israelis like Ford, who lived next to the border with Gaza, the sound of rockets fired by Hamas militants was something they had gotten used to in recent years as the tensions between Israel and Palestinian militants flare up from time to time. In order to protect local residents from the dangers of such rocket attacks, the construction code required a safe room to be built into each house in the communities located close to the border with the Gaza Strip. "When my kids got to me, we all went to the same room. I locked up the safe room from inside," Ford said. While Ford and her family were waiting for the rocket attack to be over in the safe room, she started to hear news about Hamas militants invading Israeli towns close to the border with Gaza. That was when she realized the grave danger for her mother and her younger sister, who lived in kibbutz Kfar Aza that was closer to the border with Gaza. "For the first 15-20 minutes [after the sound of rockets], I talked to my sister. She tried to calm me down. After I got my kids, I called her and reassured her that my kids were safe with me in the safe room. And my sister told me that my mother and herself were also in the safe room. We ended the conversation at about 6:45 a.m. I sent them a picture of my son in the family WhatsApp group. We know that they saw our messages ... but at some point around 7 a.m., they didn’t read our messages anymore. That was the last time we were in contact with them," Ford said. Aware of the dangers her mother and her sister faced, Ford did not try to call them to avoid attracting unwanted attention from the Hamas fighters who could have already invaded the kibbutz where they lived. For more than three days, Ford tried different ways to find out what happened to her mother and her younger sister. She wrote a number of posts on social media with pictures and detailed descriptions of their appearance. Unfortunately, Ford learned later that week the tragic news that both her mother and her sister were murdered in the house where they lived. In the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time Ford’s mother, Tova Goren, 65, had been a teacher of liberate and Bible studies at a local high school for over 20 years. She also had a catering business. "This was her last year as a teacher. She was supposed to be retired. When the new school year started in September, it was the first time she was not a teacher anymore. This was the first month of her retirement," Ford said. The last time Ford’s mother posted on social media was on October 5, when she shared a number of pictures of the food she prepared for an upcoming holiday that Saturday. According to Ford, it was supposed to be a big religious holiday in their kibbutz and people in the local communities were preparing to celebrate with family members. "This kibbutz was not religious. They were supposed to have a festival for the children and the community. We were supposed to go there and attend this event," she said. That was also why Ford’s younger sister, Eren Goren, who lived in another city in central Israel, came to her mother’s home to help with the preparation for the holiday. Noa described her as a 33-year old benevolent traveler with a Master's degree in International Development who worked for a non-profit helping former inmates reintegrate into the society. "She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time," Ford said. Ford’s younger brother, his wife and their four-month-old baby were also at her mother’s home on the eve of October 7 to help prepare for the holiday. Fortunately, her brother’s family did not stay in her mother’s house for the night. Out of Ordinary AttackFord said the overnight infiltration by the Hamas fighters into Israeli homes took her by surprise, even though local residents living in the Israeli towns next to the border with Gaza were used to rocket attacks. "We have those kinds of rocket attacks, unfortunately, quite often in the last 22 years. In the beginning, we just thought we were going to have another rocket attack. You do have the ability to lock up the safe room. But I don’t think anyone really expected anything like this," she said. "Even in our nightmares, we couldn’t have imagined that something like this could happen." According to Ford, most of the safe rooms in Israeli homes had doors made of concrete and reinforced steel, which would make them very difficult to breach from outside. Her recollection of the events of October 7 suggests the Hamas fighters tried to smoke Israelis out of their safe rooms by bulking and lighting up furniture at the door. "They tried to force people to come out to shoot them or take them as hostages," she said. As Ford’s kibbutz was also located very close to the border with Gaza, she and her family had to be evacuated from their home in the afternoon of the day of the initial attack. They have been staying at her uncle’s home ever since. Ford did not know when she could return home or even whether she would have a chance to visit her mother’s house to find some closure.

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