Day: October 9, 2024

PEOPLE ASK; WHAT DO YOU ANSWER?

The immeasurable effect the horror of October 7 had on the people of Israel

By  Forest Rain Marcia

One year after October 7th, it is still October 7th. Every day is that horrible day when Gaza invaded and changed everything. 

It is a feeling I don’t know if people outside of Israel can understand. So many seem to assume that October 7th is an event that the people of Israel should just “get over” – that time has passed and it is possible to move on.   

It’s not possible. Every day will be October 7th until we deal with the problem the Hamas invasion made it impossible to ignore…

It was a few months after the invasion when a visiting American politician asked me how much October 7th affected the people of Israel.

I tried to explain what it’s like to live in a country with one degree of separation. For anyone coming from a large country like America, it is hard to comprehend just how small Israel is and how connected we all are.

My friend’s daughter was murdered at the Nova.

Michal Murdered. A daughter of a friend, the writer had known Michal since she was a child. Then came October 7, “and I was attending her funeral.”

I’ve since become friends with families of people who were taken hostage and gotten a glimpse of what it is like to walk in their shoes.

On October 7, my younger son’s army unit was called to Nir Oz. He described the kibbutz as being a place of fire and brimstone. Every house was broken into and the cars were on fire. They had to step over bodies to get into the kibbutz to pull survivors out of their homes and take them to a safe place. He guarded them while others searched the kibbutz to see if any terrorists remained in the homes. There wasn’t a lot to do but watch, wait, and listen to the most horrific conversations imaginable:

“Where is my mother/sister/neighbor?”

“Taken to Gaza.”

“Have you seen my husband/brother/friend?”

“Yeah, they murdered him.”

My son’s friend, a boy, he did a year of voluntary service with before enlisting; a boy he lived with in a commune (so they got to know each other very well) – that boy’s brothers, twins, were both killed on October 7. They had seen that our people were being slaughtered, so they took their personal firearms and drove to the south to save whoever they could.

BOTH of them were killed.

Bloodied Bunkbed.  This is where the killers from Gaza stood and slaughtered children at a home in Kibbutz Nir Oz.

At this point in my description, the American who asked the question stopped me. He couldn’t take in more.

I didn’t tell him about my friend’s family in Be’eri who were slaughtered. Her husband, his sister, and her twin grandchildren. I didn’t describe what it was like to walk in the places where they were murdered. Or tell of their family members who I met after and the trauma they carry.

I didn’t tell him about my friend in Alumim who survived, but carried the burden of those she knows who did not. Of her descriptions of being evacuated from her home. Or about her husband who died not long afterwards. It seems he died of heartache but who can say?

I didn’t speak of my friend Adele who survived the slaughter in Nirim and has spent much of her time since advocating for the hostages, managing her online platform and speaking for Israel abroad.  Or of her neighbor Motti Bluestein who showed me some of the damage in their kibbutz and told me the stories of what happened that day.

I didn’t speak of the soldiers whose funerals and shivas I’ve been to – our neighbors, sons of our friends, soldiers who served with our friends’ sons, families we’ve known for years, and families we met for the first time in the worst moments of their lives.  

It was before our other son’s very good friend Dor was killed by a Hezbollah drone.

Facing the Faces. Many public places in Israel are now filled with stickers honoring and memorializing the dead, usually with their photo and a sentence or saying that captures the essence of their personality. These are spontaneous displays, a sign of many people motivated in the same way to retain something of people they loved. On this wall in a Tel Aviv train station, I see many faces I know well.

It was before I sat down and talked to my friend’s son, Eitan Halley about what it was like to be in the shelter from which Hersh Goldberg Polin was taken hostage, where Hersh’s best friend Aner stood in between the invaders and the innocents cowering behind him and threw back grenade after grenade until he couldn’t anymore. Eitan, who watched Aner and told himself:

“I have to learn how to do what he is doing because, if something happens to him, I have to step into his shoes”.

And then when Aner died, he saw. And he stepped up and fought back. Miraculously he survived when so many others did not. What is it like to be in his head now?

I didn’t describe our friend who lives in on the northern border who refused to be evacuated and how every time the red alert notifies of missiles being shot at her community, we brace ourselves until we learn that something else blew up and not her house, not her.

Can a stranger to this country understand the experience of talking to someone you don’t know and, in a few minutes, them telling you their trauma from October 7? Of friends who messaged them as they were being killed. Of not knowing if their son or daughter was alive or hostage. How are you? isn’t supposed to be a terrifying question to ask…

My friend’s children who are fighting in Gaza, and friends of our boys are an extended circle to worry about. That tension is always in the background, so much so that it’s not even something we mention. It’s just there. All the time.  

As is the horror of there still being hostages in Gaza. People we know, or people we know, they know. People whose stories we connected to through the TV so much so that it feels like we know them – because we do. They are us. Children and grandparents, young people at a party, sons and daughters serving in the army. They are all of us.

Barbarism at Be’eri. The hoards from Gaza came through Kibbutz Be’eri leaving in their wake death and destruction. (Photo: Oren Ben Hakoon/Flash90)

And that doesn’t even begin to describe the panic of being bombarded by ballistic missiles from Iran, watching the missiles rain down live on TV (or outside as happened to some of my unlucky friends), and seeing the missiles from our air defense system rise up to intercept them – not enough to keep them all away, and incapable of preventing huge pieces of shrapnel falling and smash everything in their path. There are no words to describe how infuriating it is to hear that Iran’s attack, spraying the country with missiles the size of buses “caused no damage” knowing that hundreds of homes were damaged and that the fact that no Israeli was killed was an absolute miracle. 

Or the new terror of soldiers, our sons, and fathers, brothers and friends, having to go into Lebanon to remove Hezbollah Radwan commandos from our border – Hezbollah’s highly trained soldiers, a thousand times more deadly than the gleeful murderers of Gaza. 

There are not enough words to explain how much October 7 has affected the people of Israel. It is everywhere. With every breath we take.

And even those who ask how we are, don’t really want to hear the answer. It’s too much. Perhaps the real problem is that if you understand the depth of the horror, you cannot look away. You learn what evil looks like and you have to act. You cannot stop until it’s destroyed.

This picture encapsulates a fraction of what it is like to be in October 7th every day. To carry it with us, everywhere. McDonald’s in Israel. While the employees prepare food, while people consider what to order, the faces of the hostages, on after the other, silently watch from the tv screen.



About the writer:

Forest Rain Marcia is an American-born Israeli who lives in northern Israel. She’s a branding expert and storyteller. Her passion is giving voice to the stories of Israel illuminating its profound events, cherished values, and exemplary role models that transcend borders, casting Israel as an eternal wellspring of inspiration and strength for a global audience.

Forest Rain made Aliyah at the age of thirteen. After her IDF service, she co-developed and co-directed a project to aid victims of terrorism and war. These activities gave her extensive first-hand experience with the emotional and psychological processes of civilians, soldiers, and their families, wounded and/or bereaved and traumatized by terrorism and war (grief, guilt, PTSD, etc). Throughout the years, she has continued to voice the stories, pain, and strength of traumatized Israelis to motivate others to provide support and counter the hate that threatens Jews in Israel, around the world, and Western civilization itself through the understanding that what begins with the Jews never ends with Jews.

Inspiration from Zion: https://inspirationfromzion.com/





While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

POLICE OFFICER SERVES IN HONOR OF HER SLAIN HERO HUSBAND

First to engage, first to fall – he saved the lives of his colleagues.

By Rolene Marks

*Photos courtesy of the Harush family and Israel Police.

“If I had just a tiny bit of information about what was to come, I would never have let him go,” said Hodaya Harush in memory and tribute to her late husband, Eliyahu. Hodaya is an extraordinary woman, a mother of three, who is Haredi and serves in the Israeli Police as an investigator at the Netivot police station. Eliyahu Harush was the first officer to fall on 7 October in Sderot during the “Battle of Sderot Police Station” that would become one of the seminal moments of that ‘Black Saturday’ – a symbol of the heroism of Israel’s police who fought valiantly against a ruthless enemy who threatened the civilians of their town.

A few nights before the seventh, Hodaya had a dream. She dreamt that she was standing with Eliyahu’s shift commander and she was crying. Hodaya tried to erase the dream from her mind but the events of the days to come would reopen that memory.

Eliyahu dropped Hodaya and their three girls off at her father’s house in Petach Tikvah on the Thursday before he started his shift at the police station. He was going to collect them after Shabbat ended. They communicated via What’s App for the next two days and one of the last messages Hodaya received from Eliyahu was a sticker with the message:

 “Keep an eye out for children who don’t have family”.  

Her final words to him were “Chag Sameach”.

Saturday morning started with sirens and rocket fire. Hodaya gathered her children and joined the rest of the extended family in the mamad (shelter). Hodaya like most Israelis, is used to rocket fire and sirens and tried to settle the children back to sleep. Her brother-in-law, who was also a police officer, received a message from his patrol unit and was called away. Hodaya understood that something big had happened. Although she had never broken Shabbat, Hodaya opened her phone and saw the messages coming in. The news came in that Sderot Police Station had been taken over by Hamas terrorists. Hodaya had seen a picture of the white pick-up trucks with mounted guns on the back that is synonymous with Hamas that day. Hodaya tried to call Eliyahu. She sent messages. She tried another police officer, Mor Shakuri, but there was no answer from either of them. Shakuri was already dead, killed, as was her father Roni that day, when terrorists opened fire on a car he was in with two other officers.

Hodaya’s daughter Lia, just 5-years-old at the time, told her that she had a dream. Lia dreamt her father had been killed. Hodaya felt that the dots were starting to connect. The day passed without any word from Eliyahu – or his whereabouts. Hodaya started to call anyone she could to try find out what happened to Eliyahu. She called hospitals, other police officers and friends. Her heart could not reconcile what she knew logically – something was wrong. She had seen that the district commander had given the order to demolish the police station and was frantic he may still be inside.

“On that Saturday, I didn’t know exactly what was happening, and that uncertainty is something I wouldn’t wish on anyone. His father and I ran backwards and forwards from the balcony looking for a sign of a patrol car but none came. It was like a movie. His sister said that maybe he’s hiding and without knowing, I told her: I know that Eliyahu is the first to go out to defend and protect his comrades and the citizens,” says Hodaya. “He is the first to save lives,” she continues.

At 1h36 in the morning, police officers finally arrived and told her that Eliyahu had been killed. Hodaya’s first question was if the police had the body – and if it was whole. They confirmed he had been killed at the front of the police station. Hodaya broke down, devastated. At 26, she was now a widow with three small children. She had to find her strength for them. Two weeks later, she returned to work.

“Even before they buried my Eliyahu, they came to me from the National Police Academy; I was still in training. They came to me from the academy and said to me: Listen, if you don’t want to continue with the course, just tell us.” Hodaya answered with an emphatic no.

“The first thing I said to them, without hesitation, was that it was Eliyahu who sent my resume, I told them: this is Eliyahu’s will. Eliyahu made sure that I joined the Israel Police and I am going to do everything possible to serve as a police officer,” says Hodaya.

Hodaya wrote her eulogy before she knew what happened that morning. She spoke of how he fought in Hashem’s name with bravery and determination to save lives. At the funeral, two officers told her that because of Eliyahu, they were alive. He had saved their lives.

It was at the Shiva where Hodaya would find out what happened that morning. A police officer told her the events as they unfolded:

Eliyahu was on shift with another officer, Sharon, when they received a call that there was an infiltration at nearby Zikim beach. Rockets were raining down on the south and other parts of the country. He told the officer to gear up – full gear, rifles, vest – everything. They were unaware that Hamas terrorists were already in Sderot. As Sharon exited the building, a pick-up truck arrived and opened fire. Sharon managed to get to a nearby shelter where he stayed for five and a half hours. Eliyahu ran out, drawing the fire to him as other officers ran to the roof where they were eventually saved. Eliyahu was the first to engage with the terrorists and the first to fall. He saved the lives of his colleagues who managed to get to safety.

Hodaya has started a campaign to dedicate a Sefer Torah in Eliyahu z”l’s name:

https://my.israelgives.org/en/fundme/Harush

Ten police officers fell in the Battle of Sderot, 59 on 7 October and 66 since 7 October.






While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).