The last words Ayelet Markels heard from her best friend Noiya Sharabi came in a message at 10am on Oct 7.
“They are out on the street and I am afraid,” it read.

The next time she would see 16-year-old Noiya, whom she described as more of a family member than a friend, she was in a coffin.

“She wasn’t like a sister, she was my sister,” the devastated teenager said. 

On Wednesday afternoon Noiya, her younger sister Yahel, 13, and their mother Lianne, 48, were buried in a cemetery in Kfar HaRif, having been murdered in the Hamas massacre at Be’eri kibbutz.

Ayelet, 16, along with her school friend, Noam Kalifa, 17, joined the hundreds of mourners who watched on as the three coffins draped in Israeli flags were lowered into the earth.

Grown men and teenage girls alike gripped their faces in pain.

Before Hamas slaughtered 1,400 Israelis nearly three weeks ago, the dusty cemetery just over 30km (18.6 miles) from the Gaza border had been modest, hidden behind a pomegranate orchard with only a few graves.

Now, it has become the final resting place for scores of those slaughtered by Hamas terrorists.

Buckets of fresh pink and red roses were carried to the cemetery for scattering on the women’s graves and colourful wreaths rested on the ground, ready to be placed on top of the soil they will lay under.