It began as a regular Saturday – and ended in fire, sorrow and the fear of worse days to come
From above, the Gaza Strip looked uncharacteristically calm as the Sentinel-2 Earth observation satellite – one of two that constantly orbit the planet, photographing each location every five days –But the nearby fields and kibbutzim of southern Israel were ablaze. At least 10 major fires were visible inside tiny Kibbutz Be’eri, a community of just over 1,000.
He went to the window of his home to see a “huge number of rockets going to the east, towards the border.” The 59-year-old started scanning his mobile phone for news, and saw reports that Hamas had breached the Israeli-built border fence in multiple locations. “I didn’t believe it could happen one day. I was surprised. No one could imagine it.”
She turned to Mr. Barel, who had served in the Israeli army, looking for an explanation. “How could you bring me here if the situation is tense like this?” she asked him angrily. But Mr. Barel, even though he keeps in touch with his ex-army colleagues on a WhatsApp group, was just as stunned. “No one knew,” he told her.
The Israeli Defence Forces patrol on Oct. 11 in the woods near Kibbutz Re’im, where campsites from the music festival are strewn about after their occupants fled four days earlier.The Barels didn’t see the Hamas paragliders, but they knew something was deeply wrong from the dark sky. The police were telling people to shelter in place, but Ms. Barel felt that was a bad idea. She told her husband to bring their SUV close to their jewellery stand while she rapidly packed their things.
Human-rights conventions, it was by then already clear, were the last thing Hamas fighters were concerned about.After two hours of driving, the Barels reached their home near Tel Aviv. Though they don’t often watch the news, this time they turned on their TV as soon as they got in the door. “When Hamas had Gilad Shalit – one person – we had to exchange 1,000 terrorists for one person,” Mr. Barel said, referring to an Israeli soldier who was taken hostage by Hamas in 2006 after a cross-border raid. Mr. Shalit was released in 2011 in a deal that freed 1,027 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.Noa, top, messaged her cousin Itamar, right, to learn about Ms. Harmati's fate as he hid in a shelter at Kibbutz Re’im.
This time, he knew instinctively, it was going to be even worse than 2009′s Operation Cast Lead, the last time Israel reinvaded Gaza to try to stop Hamas rocket fire. Mr. Jaber headed to his brother’s house to again shelter with his family. “Waiting for Israel to respond, to kill people,” he wrote to me.
If and when the expected ground invasion begins, Eyal’s uncle, as well as his brother-in-law, will be among those taking part. “If they would recruit me, I’d be the first to go,” Eyal said.
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