The large town of Ofakim, lost in the undulations of the Negev desert, awoke on Saturday morning, October 7, for the religious holiday of Sukkot, when families gather after a week of celebrations – except for Eliakim Cohen, a young man alone in his apartment overlooking a small street.
Suddenly, at 6:30am, sirens howled, breaking the silence. They announce a salvo of rockets launched from the Gaza Strip – a routine to which all residents of this enclave are accustomed. They know exactly how much time they have to rush to the nearest shelter, one of the countless cement blocks dotted all over southern Israel. Eliakim has a shelter just down the road from his home. Yet he chose to stay home. Why bother? The Iron Dome, Israel's air defense system, intercepts some 90% of the rockets that leave Gaza.
But the sirens sounded for a long time this morning, nearly a quarter of an hour. Then calm returned, until gunshots were heard. "I saw four people arrive, armed, in uniforms that looked like Tzahal [Israel Defense Forces, IDF]," said the young man, who was filming with his smartphone between the blinds. Did he notice that the green of their fatigues was lighter than usual, that they were wearing neither boots nor helmets and were equipped with Kalashnikovs? But why worry, when Gaza is more than 20 kilometers away, demonstrations at the border with Israel were halted a week earlier, and the area is reputed to be one of the most heavily guarded in the world?
"Two or three civilians, local people, go to meet them. They're shot," said Eliakim. The fighters were still advancing. Hiding behind a garbage can, a plainclothes policeman, pistol in hand, out to find out where the shots are coming from, waves his cap in the direction of the gunmen and shouts: "Police, police." The soldiers calmly approached, rifles pointed at the ground, then one of them shoots the officer on the spot. "He thought they were Tzahal soldiers. And so did I," says Eliakim. The gunman grabs the policeman's weapon and notices that he is being observed through the blinds. He fires, just as calmly, at Eliakim, who hides at the back of his room.
The assailants didn't stop there. On the same street, they entered the courtyard of a house. Michal Bilya, a young mother, says she saw these "Tzahal soldiers" from a distance. "It was when they came closer that we realized they weren't Israelis. By the way they were behaving, and they were speaking Arabic to each other."
At the first shots, the family – four adults and six children gathered for Shabbat – immediately moved upstairs. Suddenly from the ground floor they hear dull thumps and smell smoke – is it grenades? Rocket launchers? It doesn't matter, they've got to run, and there's her baby daughter, just a month old, to save. As furious rounds of fire crackle, the whole household climbs through a tiny window, jumps on to a tin roof, climbs on to the roof of the house next door, and flatten themselves against the ground between the low wall and the hot water tank, one after the other. All except the last to get out. An assailant shot him with a machine gun while he had one leg out of the window. He fell. "It was my brother," says Michal.
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