October 7th
Three and a half weeks ago, on Saturday October 7th I woke up and heard bombing and missile sounds. This wasn't something new, I live in Israel, ~8 km from the Gaza strip, those sounds don't surprise me and don't frighten me. I stayed in bed a little longer, not worrying even a bit. After a while I checked the news and realized this time was different, Hamas terrorists have crossed the wall and are inside kibbutzim and villages. My mom, brothers and I gathered together, we decided we must leave for somewhere safe. Currently the instructions were to stay inside, lock the door and windows. I went around the house closing the windows (without bars). We started packing some clothes and essential stuff while waiting anxiously for an opportunity to drive away.
Finally, sometime in the afternoon we were told that now it's safe to leave. We drove north to a village were acquaintances of ours gave us a place to stay. There we lived for almost a week. I checked the news constantly. Only now I realized the horror that was happening just outside our doorstep. More than 1300 civilians murdered. Families in their home, people without any protection. More than 200 kidnapped. Men, women children and seniors. Hamas terrorists were inside a village less than 1.5 km from our house. We could have been next. Killed or kidnapped.
On Wednesday there was a siren (missile alarm) while I was outside not with my family. I laid on the ground and covered my head. When the siren stoped, I ran to the underground shelter near the house where my family was. We were told that there is a hostile aircraft alert and we should stay inside the shelter. There was no reception and we didn't know what was happening. After about two hours we were told the hostile aircraft alert was a false alarm and we can come outside.
Although it was a false alarm, the north border of Israel started to heat up as well. We decided to flee again to the south east of Israel. So we drove to a small village where nice people gave us a place to stay. We are now more than two weeks here, It's quite here. I don't know how long we will stay here.
This is my personal story, nothing more.
Before we left I took my new DSLR camera (new for me, an old camera) and started experimenting with it and shooting photos. I will share some selected pictures on Pixelfed.
Written by cellodc