Two survivors of the October 7 attacks in Israel criticize the long delay it took for the army to come to the aid of citizens attacked that day by Hamas militants in villages located in the northern Gaza Strip, this territory Palestinian who has since been shelled by the Israeli army.
It was around 6:30 a.m. on the morning of October 7 when Rotem Holin, aged 45, was awakened by the sound of rockets flying over Kfar Aza, a kibbutz of nearly 800 inhabitants located a few kilometers from the Strip. Gaza. In the hours that followed, Hamas militants killed more than fifty people in addition to taking several residents of the village hostage.
When she heard gunshots coming from outside, the mother rushed to lower the curtains on the windows of her home and locked herself and her two children in a “safe room” (safe room), told the Duty Monday the Israeli, who was passing through Montreal for a few days, in the company of Batia Holin, a 71-year-old lady who lives in the same kibbutz.
In a conversation on the WhatsApp messaging system, residents of the neighborhood then began to describe the horror occurring in this neighborhood, where several civilians were killed and houses burned. “People were writing ‘where is the army? Why is no one here to help us? “But they received no response,” recalls Rotem Holin.
Then, around noon that day, Hamas militants broke down the door of her house, before entering the room where the mother and her two children were. “I stood in front of them, there were six of them, and I told them that I have two children with me,” says Mme Holin. The activists then searched his home, his phone and his car before leaving the scene.
“We now know that we were to be taken to Gaza as hostages, but my car was broken at the time and they had no other vehicle to transport us,” says Rotem Holin, who has since lived with his children in a hotel room located in another kibbutz in southern Israel.
30 hour wait
The Israeli woman says she then lost access to running water in her home in the hours that followed, forcing her and her children to relieve themselves in “plastic bags” while waiting to be rescued. by the Israeli army. However, soldiers did not arrive on the scene until midday the next day to transport the mother and her children to safety, approximately 30 hours after the start of the Hamas attacks in Israel. The country’s army is nevertheless considered one of the “best in the world”, says Batia Holin bitterly.
“We feel like we’ve been abandoned and we don’t know why it took so long [avant que l’armée nous porte secours], also deplores Rotem Holin, who blames the government of Benjamin Netanyahu for this delay. This is one of our disappointments. »
On October 7, attacks by the militant group left some 1,200 people dead, according to the Israeli government. Of the approximately 200 Israelis taken hostage, 99 are still believed to be in the hands of Hamas. The army is bombing from the Gaza Strip, where more than 31,100 people have died so far, according to the Hamas health ministry.
Added to the deadly violence is a famine which is increasingly worrying the United Nations, at a time when humanitarian aid is struggling to reach residents. Meanwhile, negotiations for a truce in the conflict in Gaza are failing, with Israel and Hamas struggling to agree on the conditions.