[On the evening of October 6th] We stayed home and went to sleep really, really late. [At 6:30 am, when the red alert sirens broke] My boyfriend Santi ran to the door to try to see the rockets being intercepted by the Iron Dome. I told him to get into the safe room and we remained there, locked in.
At around 7:00 am, we received a message through the kibbutz WhatsApp group that terrorists may have infiltrated. Until then, we heard lots of explosions and understood that something was wrong, but at that moment we realized that a much bigger event was happening.
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At around 8:00 in the morning, Santiago texted a friend on the kibbutz, the late Nitzan Libstein, whose father, Ofir Libstein RIP, was then the head of the Sha’ar HaNegev Regional Council. He asked Nitzan what was going on, if he knew what was happening outside. Nitzan calmed him down and told him not to worry, that army units were on the way.
We remained locked in the safe room, and I was mainly worried about my friend at the Nova Festival. I spoke to her on the phone at around 7:30. I told her to come to us in Kfar Aza, that we have a safe room, and everything is fine. She answered me while running that she can’t talk, and that’s when I lost contact with her.
“Santi sent another text to Nitzan. He replied that his father and grandmother had just been murdered and that we shouldn’t leave our house because it was dangerous. That’s when the penny dropped, and we understood that there are terrorists inside the kibbutz.”
The apartment next to ours was hit by a rocket. We started to be really quiet and nervous. I wrote to my family. I told my mother that I could hear gunshots and she told me that it probably means that the army is fighting, that I shouldn’t worry and that I should be strong. At this stage, we didn’t answer the phone. Santi sent another text to Nitzan. He replied that his father and grandmother had just been murdered and that we shouldn’t leave our house because it was dangerous. That’s when the penny dropped, and we understood that there are terrorists inside the kibbutz.
Santi got up from the bed and held the safe room’s door handle. I wanted someone to know that we were in trouble. I wrote in my friends’ WhatsApp group that they should call the police, that the terrorists were here. I understood that terrorists were close by, but I didn’t realize that they were entering every house and killing people. One of my friends wrote to me that the police weren’t answering and that their call center was unable to receive calls. That was at around 10:30 am. She asked me to write to my Dad, who is a police officer (Deputy Chief Superintendent Shimon Portal). I texted him that I was in Kfar Aza and that there are terrorists and that I need help. He answered that there was a tactical unit on the way and that he’s coming.
“Santi told me that they were going to break the window. Ten minutes later, that’s what happened”
[Two minutes later, the electricity went off]. We had no way of communicating, We sat, tense, in the safe room in silence and in the dark. We could hear them yelling near the window of our apartment. Santi told me that they were going to break the window. Ten minutes later, that’s what happened. They entered our apartment screaming; they approached the safe room and tried to open the door. Santi didn’t let them turn the door handle. A second later, someone shot a round of bullets at the door. Santi was hit in his right leg by two bullets and was also wounded by a bullet that brushed his head, and he started to bleed. I was hit in my right leg by a bullet that went through the door. The bullet was stuck in my knee. At that point, we were in shock; we couldn’t believe that we had been shot. Who knew that bullets could go through the safe room door?
“Santi signaled to me with his eyes and whispered to me to open the window. I saw around 15 terrorists in the parking lot, leaning on vehicles, smoking cigarettes and laughing”
I tried to text my father again even though there was no phone reception or electricity. I wrote ‘Dad, I was shot. Help,’ and I sent the location of our apartment. Santi signaled to me with his eyes and whispered to me to open the window. I saw around 15 terrorists in the parking lot, leaning on vehicles, smoking cigarettes and laughing. Some were wearing the Hamas’s green ribbons, some wore IDF uniforms. I couldn’t believe it. I froze. Luckily, there was a small tree that blocked the view of our window. I saw that the border fence was completely breached, and the entire back gate was broken.
That very second, Santi – who was still holding the safe room’s door handle so that the terrorists wouldn’t be able to get in – heard something metallic thrown at the door, probably a grenade. He let go of the door handle, threw me out the window and jumped out. He didn’t know that there were terrorists outside.
“The terrorists simply stood in a row and shot enormous amounts of ammunition at us with automatic weapons. Six more bullets hit me”
We started to run deep into the kibbutz, in the opposite direction of the fence. They [the terrorists] simply stood in a row and shot enormous amounts of ammunition at us with automatic weapons. Six more bullets hit me, three in the left ankle, two in the left thigh and one in my arm. I fell on my face. Santi was several meters ahead of me, but when he saw that I wasn’t next to him, he turned back to pick me up. During that time, he was hit in the back by another bullet and yelled at me: ‘Neta, if you don’t run, we will die.’ Everything happened within seconds. We managed to run two blocks and reached the entrance to a house. Santi tried to open the doors to the apartments but he couldn’t. We didn’t want to make any noise – at this stage, we didn’t know if they were running after us or not.
[we found temporary shelter between two apartments], Santi took off his undershirt and made me a tourniquet for my left leg, which had been hit by five bullets and had an open fracture in the ankle. The house was slightly elevated and had a crawl space under it where we could fit. He took out all the garbage that was there and we went in and hid there for three and a half hours.
“It turned out that they were a few guys from the Border Police unit that had entered the kibbutz on their own. They had come in by foot and didn’t have a way to rescue us. At this point, I broke down”
[we heard the voices of two people who were running and out of breath] Santi saw that they were in uniform and after a few sentences, he understood that they were soldiers. He went out and yelled at them. It turned out that they were a few guys from the Border Police unit that had entered the kibbutz on their own. They had come in by foot and didn’t have a way to rescue us. At this point, I broke down. For hours I had been fighting not to lose consciousness, I had seven bullet wounds, I really needed them to get me out of there. I didn’t care about anything, not about the terrorists or anything else. I begged them not to leave us there. I screamed ‘please don’t leave me here!’
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At that moment, I thought about my father. I yelled his phone number at them and they called him. While we had been hiding, he had been trying to get inside the kibbutz. He actually went in with three other police officers, each one from a different unit, in an armored police vehicle. Together with a few other soldiers, they managed to save a family. They went into the kibbutz and took us out to Sderot. From Sderot, we were evacuated to Barzilai Hospital, and from there I went to Meir Hospital, where they operated on me. Since then, I've been at the Loewenstein Rehabilitation Center.
Neta P.
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