A year on, the memories of October 7 still haunt Israelis
Ziv Abud (left), Oz Davidian, Akiva Shabbat, and Batsheva Cohen Yaholomi survived against extraordinary odds on October 7.
The date October 7, 2023, will forever be etched into the minds and hearts of Israelis as the darkest day in the country's history.
In one surprise assault, Hamas-led terrorists infiltrated southern Israel from Gaza and went on a rampage, in what became the deadliest attack on Jews in a single day since the Holocaust.
The attackers killed men, women and children, destroyed defence systems, and set cars, houses and people ablaze as they rampaged through towns and cities.
An estimated 1,200 people were killed, while some 250 others were taken hostage into Gaza.
On the one-year anniversary of that catastrophic day, we take you into the lives of some of the regular civilians who lived through it.
It includes first-hand accounts from those whose friends and families were killed and taken hostage, people who survived while others around them were murdered, and those who stepped in to rescue civilians when the army was nowhere to be seen.
And despite 12 months passing since the day that changed Israel forever, the grief and trauma is still incredibly raw.
WARNING: Some readers might find details in this story distressing.
'I think the Iron Dome isn't working?'
ZIV ABUD was dancing at the Nova music festival with her boyfriend Eliya and nephew Amit: Suddenly at 6:29am, the music shut off. We look up at the sky and we see interceptions. At first we were kind of nonchalant because we were like, 'okay, we live in Israel. We're used to missiles. It's nothing new'. But we started to panic a little because in this area of the south, you only have 15 seconds to take cover before the rocket falls. And we realised that our lives are in danger.
BATSHEVA COHEN YAHALOMI was asleep with her family at Kibbutz Nir Oz, less than a kilometre from the Gaza border: We woke at 6:30am from the sirens. We are very practised — when there's a siren, we enter the safe room. So we all jumped from our beds — we were in our pyjamas — but this incident was very different. There were so many sirens, one after the other. We just waited for it to end, like every other incident. Not long after, we understood that, beyond the fact that there were many, many rockets and sirens, the incident is very, very different because we began to hear the sound of gunfire outside.
AKIVA SHABBAT is a volunteer medic with Israel's emergency medical service, Magen David Adom (MADA) and lives in the town of Shlomit: I open the door and I see that everything is covered in dust. I think, 'a direct hit in Shlomit, in our home?' That's not something we could have imagined. I remember when it happened, there was a lot of noise of interceptions and booms around. I said to my wife, 'I think the Iron Dome isn't working?' Two minutes after it happened and we're still trying to process it, I get a call from MADA about a direct hit on a dorm of foreign workers from Thailand, to the south, next to Moshav Naveh.
OZ DAVIDIAN is a farmer who lives with his wife and children near Re'im, which was also the site of the Nova music festival: My sister sent a message in the family WhatsApp group that there was apparently a terrorist attack in Re'im, and she says there are a lot of kids in the area of our farm — some are injured — and she's asking if someone can come help and get them out. So I answered in the group, 'I'm coming'. I said to my wife, 'stay in the safe room'. I locked the room, closed it so they'd be safe. And I left.
DORON KADOSH is the military affairs correspondent at Israel's Army Radio: There were about 2,000 to 3,000 rockets launched in a few hours. At about the same time, under the cover of the rocket fire, militants of Hamas started invading the State of Israel. I sent an SMS to a high-ranking individual in the security forces who I've known very well for several years. I write him, 'who did we eliminate last night?' because I am certain that if Hamas is firing so many rockets at Israel, it must be because we killed someone, and they are just responding. He is not answering my messages. So I say to myself, 'okay, what's going on?'.
ZIV ABUD: I notice that the police officers around me don't know what to do. Some of them tell me to sit, some tell me to crouch down. Some tell me to run, some say to drive away, some say to leave the open area. Then I look up at the sky and I see thousands of rockets. There's no sky, just rockets. So I grab [my boyfriend] Eliya's hand and I grab [my nephew] Amit's hand and I scream at them, 'we're going, now!'. We get in the car and and we drive. It's 6.40am.
'It was a death trap'
DORON KADOSH is the military affairs correspondent at Israel's Army Radio: There were about 3,000 terrorists, but they came in several waves. The first wave that was at around 7am brought in 1,000 terrorists. Afterwards, there was another wave at around 8am or 9am which brought in more terrorists. Most of them entered by land. They broke holes into the fence on the border, by using explosives, and entered with front loader [trucks] that they brought, and the front loaders simply toppled the fence.
ZIV ABUD hid with Eliya, Amit and dozens of others in a bomb shelter: We … found somewhere to take shelter, and went in to the place that we thought was the most protected place in the world — a small above-ground shelter. In hindsight, I understand that it was a death trap.
BATSHEVA COHEN YAHALOMI hid in her shelter with her husband Ohad and their three children: People started writing in the Whatsapp groups of the kibbutz, 'terrorists are in the kibbutz, don't open the doors'. We started hearing them shooting outside, shouting 'Allahu Akbar'. And we started to smell fires, to hear the sound of pounding on windows and doors. We tried to keep it quiet. I kept the girls busy with videos on my phone. I asked them to be very, very quiet. We hadn't managed to eat, we hadn't managed to go to the bathroom. But we didn't move from the safe room. It was very, very scary. But we had a problem with the door of the safe room. It didn't close properly and the door handle kept slipping out of place.
AKIVA SHABBAT decided to drive his ambulance to the dorm housing foreign workers: After I got the call for help, I pick up the pants that I had laid on the couch by the room, in the sitting room, and everything is full of shards of glass, the pants are all torn up. I head out with the helmet and vest, and I didn't even think of taking my gun.
DORON KADOSH: [The attackers] had prepared their plan in advance and knew that in the first hour they had to 'blind the eyes' of the army's lookout posts, and to prevent all sorts of defence systems placed on the border fence from working. They simply destroyed all the systems located on the length of the border [so] that the military would not be able to surveil them. There was no situation assessment in Israel. The army could barely see what was happening.
OZ DAVIDIAN left his wife and kids to go rescue people from the Nova music festival: I went out through the fields. Here, I met for the first time with some of the kids who had come running from the party. I asked the kids what happened. And they said 'there's a terrorist attack, they're shooting all over', and they had managed to escape.
"I asked if there are more terrorists, if there are more kids there in the area."
"They said 'of course, there are tonnes of terrorists and a lot of kids'."
"And so I drove to the party."
ZIV ABUD: There were 29 people in the shelter, so we were like sardines. One on top of the other, packed in tight, tight, tight. And we said, 'okay, it'll take an hour, but then we'll get out of here, and it'll be better when we get out of here'. We don't know what's going on, we don't know anything. Then the terrorists reached us.
AKIVA SHABBAT: I get to the moshav that called for help and there, I meet a foreign Thai worker, around 30 [years old], lying on the floor, with cuts all over his body, his face to the ground. I turn him over and I see he's alive. I decide to put him in the ambulance to take him to meet up with [another paramedic]. But soon, we understand that there are a lot of terrorists on the road.
BATSHEVA COHEN YAHALOMI: After about two hours [in the shelter, my husband] Ohad understood the kibbutz was full of terrorists and the situation was very, very serious. He decided he was going to leave the safe room and close the door on us from the outside. That was the only way to close it. So he went out to protect us, and he waited outside the safe room with a gun.
ZIV ABUD: The first thing we hear [outside the shelter], besides the chaos, is the yelling. They were yelling like madmen, cursing, shooting in the air. And we also heard screams of people from outside, so we realised that they were shooting people. And we just tried to stay quiet, we said, 'maybe they'll miss us? Maybe they won't see us? Maybe they won't know?' But unfortunately, they knew exactly what they were looking for.
OZ DAVIDIAN: I get to the main road and I see another group of kids running in my direction. I load them in the car, drive through the fields and I drop them off [at a safe location]. And then I start doing batches, getting further away, away from the danger of the party — or so I thought.
'I understood immediately that they are kidnapping us'
ZIV ABUD was crammed into a tiny bomb shelter when armed militants advanced: I remember the fear. I remember that I wet my pants, just from hearing the screams of people outside. Three seconds later, we hear something metal, falling on top of the shelter, we hear metal falling on cement … and someone yells 'grenade, grenade! It's a grenade, get it out of here!'
BATSHEVA COHEN YAHALOMI was in her safe room with her children when she heard someone break into her home: At about 10am, terrorists succeeded in breaking into our house. They shot Ohad. We heard him shouting in pain. And then they succeeded in breaking down the door of the safe room. The three children and I sat very, very close together. Four terrorists of Hamas entered wearing uniforms, with explosive belts, with guns. And they began to talk to us in Arabic. Sometimes they said the word, 'come'. I understood immediately that they are kidnapping us.
AKIVA SHABBAT decided to drive his ambulance home to check on his family as the scale of the attack became clear: In a WhatsApp [group chat] for a security squad I am in, we understand there are apparently terrorists all around the area. We start getting notifications from MADA as well about ambulances that were hit, and we understand that it's something bigger. I then go home, I take my wife and the kids from the safe room, and I transfer them to the neighbours. At this point, I take my weapon.
Oz had his dash cam recording as he frantically tried to rescue survivors from the Nova festival massacre.
"As I'm doing my trips, I start getting locations of people who are still hiding at the party.
"I get to location after location, take out the groups, and just take them to safety.
"There were trips that I did with six to seven people, there were trips with 15, and there was a trip with 25, with people in the trunk, in the hold.
"Everyone that was there, I didn't leave anyone behind. I just loaded them and got them the hell out of there."
DORON KADOSH is the military affairs correspondent at Israel's Army Radio: At around 11am to 12pm, there came a third wave … that weren't terrorists who came to loot, who came to kill, who came to kidnap. At the time, I'm sitting in the studio all day, where there really is a huge amount of chaos and I cannot believe that I am reporting what I am reporting.
ZIV ABUD: The fear [in the shelter] is insane. My heart is pounding like crazy. I'm holding Eliya's hand, and we're hugging each other so hard. At this point, they're throwing one grenade after another and … the last grenade explodes inside the shelter. I felt that I was just going to go up in flames, I felt like they were burning down the shelter. Smoke, a metallic taste. I felt this heat, everything was hot. My body is hurting, everything hurts, and suddenly, in the midst of all these feelings, I hear Eliya screaming out of nowhere. He says he's injured, I asked him where. He says his leg. And those were the last words that Eliya and I spoke. And suddenly, I feel his hand letting go. That was the moment of the kidnapping.
AKIVA SHABBAT: Some friends call us to say two of them are injured. They ask us to come. I get in my ambulance and go to Moshav Prigan to meet with some others. We hear shooting from the edge of the moshav, and we head out, the four of us, with our equipment and our weapons.
"We walk towards the battle, and we try to get to our injured guys a few times, as we're being shot at."
"A bullet scrapes my helmet, and we realise we don't have a way to advance."
OZ DAVIDIAN: I have to go up a main road, and then I see a terrorist shooting [into] a valley. I look and I see he's shooting at kids who are running and he's totally absorbed in shooting. I do an angle turn with the car, take my pistol and I shoot 11 bullets at him. He doesn't fall, and I think I didn't hit him, so I decide to drive at him and just run him over — just so he stops shooting at them. And I press on the gas and drive fast at him, and a moment before I get there, he falls.
BATSHEVA COHEN YAHALOMI: I told the kids to scream because I thought that maybe the army was in the kibbutz and if we delay, they will succeed in coming. But now we know the army wasn't near. As much as we tried to delay, in the end, one of the terrorists pointed his gun at us and said to us, 'I shoot'. He didn't leave us much choice, and we were forced to leave the [safe] room. When we went out, we saw Ohad sitting on the floor, injured and bleeding. He was still conscious. He said to us that he loves us, and that we [should] go with them. I put the baby with him — I thought they would let her go, that they would have mercy on her because she's just a baby. But they didn't. They took her and pushed us outside. That was the last time we saw Ohad.
ZIV ABUD: The terrorists came into the shelter, and at this point, people were half alive, half breathing. You could hear people's last breaths, people gasping. The terrorists just shoot inside the shelter, non-stop. So those who weren't killed in the first stage of the grenades, die for certain in the [spray of bullets]. Most of the people in the back part of the shelter fell on top of me, and I felt myself falling [unconscious]. The next thing I know, I open my eyes, and it's 11am.
BATSHEVA COHEN YAHALOMI: Two motorcycles arrived. One of the terrorists held the baby and sat on a motorcycle. Behind him, they sat Eitan, my son, who is 12 years old. On the other motorcycle, they sat me and Yael, my 10-year-old daughter, between two terrorists. Luckily, the baby began to cry before we started driving, and they transferred her to my arms. That's basically what saved her.
'The things that I saw were unfathomable'
ZIV ABUD was hidden under a pile of bodies in the bomb shelter, her boyfriend Eliya nowhere to be found: I open my eyes, I turn my head to the left, and I see Amit and his girlfriend Karine, they were both dead. And I start hyperventilating, I can hardly breathe. It's super hot in the shelter.
"Only me and another six people are alive."
"I try to figure out where Eliya is, and I can't find him."
"I had to lift bodies to make sure that he wasn't in the shelter. And he really wasn't there."
BATSHEVA COHEN YAHALOMI was on the back of a motorcycle with her two daughters: As I was being driven out of the kibbutz [on a motorcycle], the things that I saw were unfathomable. The whole kibbutz was on fire, the houses were on fire, the trees, the cars. The kibbutz was completely destroyed. They destroyed and burned, and brutally murdered whole families. I saw young boys carrying TVs, going barefoot back to Gaza. It was a crazy scene, incomprehensible.
AKIVA SHABBAT was being shot at as he tried to save injured friends at Moshav Prigan: Our friends were badly injured and your adrenaline is very high and you want to go in. We shot into the houses of Israeli residents, knowing that the terrorists were in the houses and the families are in the safe rooms. And after you get a bullet in your helmet, it sinks in that people are dead and injured, and you're not sure you're going to get out of here alive.
OZ DAVIDIAN was driving the roads, looking for survivors from the Nova music festival: On a main road, I see someone in the distance wearing a uniform. I thought it was a soldier, a medic. And then I ask him, 'what's going on? Are there injured people? Do you need help?' And he says to me in Arabic, 'they're dead'. And then all of a sudden I realise, according to his accent, that he's from Gaza, and then I realise he's a terrorist. So I put my foot on the gas, I escape between the burning cars and the bodies. He just called everyone around him, and they all started shooting at me as I'm escaping, and by some miracle, the bullets didn't hit me.
DORON KADOSH was covering the events of October 7 for Israel's Army Radio: I receive a list on WhatsApp, a really crazy list of all the deaths from the Golani army brigade [in southern Israel]. This company and that company, have been were wiped out. I'm looking at this message and telling myself, 'Wow, people have no shame in spreading fake news, to scare people that there are so many casualties, full companies of Golani were wiped out'. It turns out they were.
ZIV ABUD: The hours go by, and the stench just gets worse. We spent six hours in the shelter, buried under bodies. We couldn't move. It's not just bodies, it was parts of people, there were people without faces, they were so mangled … that's what we had to sit and look at.
AKIVA SHABBAT: I understand we can't drive anywhere. The whole area is full of terrorists. But there's no choice. I need to go back to my friends. We load an injured guy named Boaz, who's also a paramedic who had volunteered with us in MADA. He has a bullet in his chest, very badly injured. The injuries are very complex. They are in severe shock because they've lost a lot of blood, and they've been lying there around two hours.
OZ DAVIDIAN: I'm driving on the road … and I see two terrorists sitting on the ground and they're changing their cartridges. They recognise me, that I'm a Jew, an Israeli. I don't have any more ammo. So I just press on the gas, run them over and continue on my ride.
BATSHEVA COHEN YAHALOMI: On the way into Gaza, my motorcycle fell, but Eitan's motorcycle advanced into Gaza. The terrorist that was with me, took me, 10-year-old Yael, and the baby … on the side of the road and threatened us with the gun. I kept asking him, 'where's my son, where's my son?' But I hear that one of the army tanks was very, very close. It sounded like it was really passing right next to us. I escaped carrying the baby in my arms and dragging 10-year-old Yael out with me. The terrorist escaped in the direction of Gaza.
'We're in a catastrophe and there is no-one to help'
ZIV ABUD spent six hours buried under the bodies of people killed in the bomb shelter: Around 3pm, somebody came to rescue us. He got there based on a location that his son sent him. He couldn't find his son because he was murdered. But he found us, and he decided to rescue us. On the way to the hospital, I don't know how to describe it. It was like a video game, apocalypse. Everything is on fire, bushes on fire, burnt-out cars, bodies, my god, how many bodies? When I entered the hospital, I'm in total shock. What's happening? Where am I? How did I get through this? How am I alive? Where's Eliya?
BATSHEVA COHEN YAHALOMI escaped a kidnapping attempt with her two daughters: We were barefoot, in pyjamas. After we got away from the terrorists, we started to run through the fields, the baby was in my arms. I really, really got tired. I told Yael that we will lay on the ground and pretend we are dead. We lay down and covered ourselves with a blanket. And each time I peeked to see if the convoy of terrorists is gone, it [wasn't]. It was so, so long.
AKIVA SHABBAT had seriously injured people in the back of his ambulance: Every minute [brought] another realisation that we're in a catastrophe and there is no one to help. If we don't fight, no one will help. And if we don't evacuate the injured, no-one will come.
OZ DAVIDIAN was ready to end his rescue mission as the sun set over Israel: I continued with my rescues, trip after trip, until the sun set and I didn't see any more signs of life. But at 8:10pm I get a call from a mother who sends me a location. I head out to the place … there are bodies everywhere, I don't see anyone alive. I don't know what to tell her. And I don't tell her the truth. I'm there and I don't tell her that I can't find a sign of life there.
BATSHEVA COHEN YAHALOMI: A bus with soldiers arrived. Now I know in retrospect that that was the first bus to reach the kibbutz after six hours. They dropped off the soldiers and collected us.
"After many hours, they entered our home and Ohad wasn't there.
"We got an initial message from the army that he is also kidnapped.
"We still just don't know what his situation is."
ZIV ABUD: [At the hospital], I start getting a series of messages on my phone. I open the messages and then I discover a picture of Eliya, with subtitles in Arabic, and he's inside Gaza, alive, scared, terrified. His shirt is full of blood. He's trembling from fear. His eyes tell everything.
'I get up every day for Eliya'
Sometimes, a single day can change the world.
Since October 7, more than 41,800 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Ministry of Health, in a relentless bombing campaign by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The shock waves of October 7 now threaten to ignite a wider war in the Middle East. The IDF has opened a new front against Hezbollah — bombing its strongholds in Beirut and southern Lebanon, and recently launching a ground invasion.
Of the roughly 250 people abducted that day by Hamas, half were freed in a brief ceasefire in November, including Batsheva's son Eitan.
But her husband Ohad, and Ziv's boyfriend Eliya are believed to still be deep underground somewhere in Gaza.
For Batsheva and Ziv, life has stood still.
ZIV ABUD has spent the past year lobbying for the release of Eliya: Since October 7, we've been in a never-ending war. I can't even deal with the trauma, because the trauma hasn't ended. I haven't closed the circle, Eliya isn't home yet.
BATSHEVA COHEN YAHALOMI has been reunited with her son Eitan, but it's believed her husband Ohad remains a hostage in Gaza: We dream about peace, we still hope for it, despite the terrible event. The only hope that maybe emerges from this cruel and shocking event is that maybe we'll finally find a solution. We are dreaming of this.
AKIVA SHABBAT was called up to fight in Gaza as a reservist in the IDF a few days after October 7: I was [in Gaza] for eight months. A year on, we're dealing on a personal, family, level. Our children went through that day in the safe room. They heard the stories, they know the people who were killed.
OZ DAVIDIAN made about 20 trips on October 7 to find and rescue survivors: I don't think I'm a hero. I think I did what I had to do. If I didn't do it, those people wouldn't be alive. It's something that stays with me, everything that happened. I took upon myself a year of mourning. I don't go out and don't have fun, and don't live a regular life. I'm living the war. All of us, including myself, we are waiting for the moment when all the hostages will come home and we finish the war.
ZIV ABUD: I get up every day for Eliya. I do a million and one things to tell the story of who he was. I can't bring him back from Gaza, but I can keep him in people's consciousness, and I'll do everything to make sure of that.
Credits
- Reporting: Allyson Horn
- Production: Orly Halpern
- Photography: Haidarr Jones, Reuters, Getty
- Video: Channel 13
- Editing: Rebecca Armitage
- Digital design: Basel Hindeleh
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- X (formerly Twitter)
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