The Full Testimony
Testimony of
Rotem Israel
On that Shabbat morning, Rotem, who was eight months pregnant, locked herself in the safe room with her two small children. She heard gunshots and terrorists in her neighborhood. She pushed a large cabinet to block the safe room door and asked her 8-year-old son to be quiet and keep his 3-year-old brother from waking up so the bad people outside wouldn’t hear them. After many long hours of fear, as terrorists broke into her house, Rotem thought that might be the last time she saw her children, and she began to say goodbye to them. That evening IDF soldiers rescued her, and only then did Rotem see the extent of the destruction outside. She broke down when she found out that her neighbors had been murdered. She was evacuated to Kibbutz Gvulot. There, she met Adi, a girl only seven-and-a-half years old, who told Rotem that she saw her mother being murdered while she was hiding in a closet.
Place of the event:
Holit
Name:
Rotem Israel
Organization:
None
Language:
Hebrew
Credit:
Date: 03.11.2023
Interview: Galia Shiloach
Photography: Ari Bloch
Video Editing: Yuval Brill
Content Editing: Tali Segev
Translation: Allison Ofanansky
Other media
Deborah Mintz
“Another couple of hours we would have been dead anyways”- Deborah Mintz on 7.10 in Nirim
Tamar Livyatan
From Tamar Livyatan's testimony: "I have a daughter and granddaughter here, and I am not leaving without them."
Judith Bdolach
From Judith Bdolach's testimony: "What should have been a calm and quiet work-out, turned into a nightmare"
Amir Levkowiz
From Amir Levkowiz's testimony: ""They'll have to go through me, but they won't get in from here. And I just shoot.""
Jude Ida Turgeman
From Jude Ida Turgeman's testimony: "They realized that we might not live, they realized that their friends were being killed."
Etel Bennett
From Etel Bennett's testimony: "I said to my grandson: "I'm not Rambo. I'm not going to fight anyone with knives.""
Liat Ben- shimol
From Liat Ben- shimol's testimony: "The beautiful and pastoral moshav had turned into a war zone, a battlefield."
Rotem Israel
From Rotem Israel's testimony: "I saw the barrel of a rifle between the closet and the wall, as if death was looking into my face"
Meshi Foldes and
Sebastian Posdsamser
From MESHI FOLDES, Sebabstian Posdsamser's testimony: "I hear gunshots spinning by me from every direction."
Danny Garkovitch
From Danny Garkovitch's testimony: " I performed the tearing mourning ritual in my heart a long time ago."
Regina Solomon
From Regina Solomon's testimony: "“Nobody understands what’s going on; firing, loud noise and many missiles.”"
