The echoes of the Hamas attack took a few hours to reach Migdal Oz. This Israeli religious settlement in the West Bank, a territory occupied by Israel since 1967 in violation of international law, is located on a plateau between Hebron and Jerusalem. When the first alarm sounded on October 7, the settlement decided to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Simhat Torah on the football pitch, close to the shelters, so that the 150 worshippers could take cover.

The "kitat konenout," the citizens' militia responsible for protecting the locality, received their first briefing at 8 am. Fathers and husbands were then given orders to mobilize immediately. They discreetly left the ceremony with their families, as the sirens continued to sound. "It's sad to say, but we're used to rockets," confided Benjy Myers, 45, one of Migdal Oz's rabbis and head of the settlement's civil response team. "And the news just fell into our laps," continued Myers. Some Migdal Oz residents have relatives living on religious kibbutzes in the Gaza Strip, which was hit by the Hamas attack. Astonishment gave way to horror.

"It wasn't the terrorism we knew. There have been knife attacks, or even bulldozer attacks, rockets... But this massacre happened in Israel, and with a level of barbarity we've never seen before," worried the rabbi, who has chosen to settle in the occupied West Bank. The defense had to be reorganized in a hurry. Out of 70 families, 25 saw some of their members – fathers, husbands, brothers – mobilized. In this colony, the doors are always open, the windows neither armored nor fitted with bars. The day after the attack, around 9 pm, a different alarm sounded: "Not that of rockets. But that of terrorist infiltration," said Myers. An individual tried to cross the fence to the south of the settlement, less than a kilometer from the Palestinian village of Beit Fajjar. He managed to escape.

"Since then, we've mobilized. And now we take Hamas seriously," added Sara Bitane Brownstein, another resident, aged 63. The members of the kitat konenout have been replaced. They have received additional training to learn how to use a weapon. A unit of Israeli soldiers has been deployed. Teams patrol night and day, and firing positions have been set up. Myers himself has been equipped with an assault rifle, which seems quite cumbersome. But the fear remains. Palestinian workers can only return to the kibbutz escorted by a member of the security forces.

What despairs the residents of West Bank settlements the most is what they perceive as a lack of support from the international community. "It wasn't the sirens that traumatized me, but the silence," says Bitane Brownstein. Pro-Palestinian demonstrations in London or New York are equated with demonstrations of support for Hamas. Anti-Semitic attacks, which are multiplying all over the world, lead them to believe that there is nowhere safe but Israel.

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