As tensions continue to mount, groups of benefactors have focused on not allowing Oct 7 to be dismissed.
One was Ella Shani, a 14-year old survivor of the attack on her Kubbutz Beeri.
Here is Ariels account of his harrowing experience, written as aguest columnfor Deadline.
Im studying computer science & linguistics at BGU.
I served at the IDF for three years as a combat commander in the gunners battalion.
I finished my service 5 years ago.
Im also a former bartender.
We also got together to say goodbye from those who left the bar, me and Mor included.
I will tell you about Mor in a bit.
We had a great time, so much that we closed the music at 6am.
I drank a lot that night, so obviously I fainted around 3:30am.
At 6:30 we woke up to sounds of explosions and Red Alarms automatic calls.
Here is a video my friend took:
It was crazy.
One rocket even burned down my grandpas bakery.
And I was only 9 years old.
But the bombing on October 7th was something else.
I never saw anything like it.
They fired hundreds of rockets at us within minutes.
We were still vulnerable from east west and from above, but its better than nothing.
For 20 minutes we hid there.
No one runs home!
We really thought its gonna be over in a few minutes.
Until we saw the boats.
I remember myself following them with my head like this
And thinking to myself
Who are they?
Then they started shooting at us.
And began to run away east, as far from the beach as we could get.
We ran half a kilometer, barefooted, drunk and terrified.
At that time the terrorists mounted the coast and started to slaughter everyone.
Fisherman who comes to that beach every Saturday for the last 30 years.
They told their parents that they sleeping at the home of a friend.
You know how it is when it comes to teens love.
While we ran we heard everything.
Every bullet they fired and every grenade they threw at innocent civilians.
We talked about it.
Should we get out of here?
Or should we go to the base?
What is more safe?
We chose the base.
It was the right call, but we didnt know it at the moment.
All the other roads were filled with terrorists that shot everyone.
At first, the guard at the entrance didnt let us in.
So obviously she didnt trust us.
We begged her, screaming at her that everyone at the beach is dead and we ran from there.
She believed us and opened the gate.
We found shelter and hid.
Lia
How old are you?
18
How long you are in the army?
A month
You know how to use that gun?
Sort of
So I took her gun and guarded the shelter.
Not long after, Yanai left us to join his friends fight and died there.
We stayed there for 2 hours.
47 missiles exploded in the base during that time.
even the fight and the bullet sounds inside the base.
Silent, alerted, terrified.
No one was drunk anymore at that point.
All the adrenalin kicked in and our mindset changed to survival mode.
We called the police, the rescue forces and even to the firefighters and no one answered us.
We felt completely abandoned for 2 whole hours.
No one knows we are here!
No one is coming for us!
I convinced myself whats the worst thing that could happen?
You will get shot and die.
And thats it, it will not hurt and you will not feel it.
I saw some of my friends writing goodbye letters to their parents, but i couldnt do it.
And if Ill not survive this, at least she had a couple hours more without knowing that fact.
Weird, I know, but at those moments your mind is going to strange places.
When those 2 hours passed, the bombing and bullets sounds got closer, maybe 30-40m from us.
So we decided to run.
That was the time to get to the cars and ran away.
So thats what we did.
The second we got out, the terrorist from the bushes came out and started shooting at us.
Yariv, the commander shot him in the head instantly and killed the son of a bitch.
The first 3 cars out of 6 got on the way.
I was in one of the third car.
Well, we were already on the road, so lets go all the way.
And we did, we found another exit and drove there.
130 km/h on agricultural roads and fields.
At the end of one field we saw two big white Savannas that was parked facing us.
I shouted to the driver to slow down!
They will shoot us if we will come at them that fast!
It wasnt a dead body, and he was not a cop.
For 4-5 seconds they just kept shooting.
We lowered our head and drove away from them.
In that moment I really believed Im dead.
Its like the movies.
I got shot and I dont feel it.
I ran my hands on every inch of my body to see where the bullets hit.
My friend Irena, who sat to my right screamed Im shot!
I looked at her and saw her hand filled with blood.
I thought, she is gonna die.
Apparently, a bullet scratched her finger and missed her, so Irena is also ok.
I looked, everyone is okay.
5 people in the car and everyone is okay.
We kept driving until we saw the ambulances and the police officers.
We stopped to give them the details, where the terrorists are and where are our friends.
I saw blood coming from Irenas back.
I moved her shirt and saw a bullet hole,
She didnt even noticed it until I saw it.
The ambulance took her and we drove home.
In the meantime, the second car drove through the Gaza border and got home okay.
The first car drove the same road as us and encountered the terrorists as well.
They shot at the car and one of the bullets hit Ahiads (my friends) leg.
They drove past them and felt safe,
Until the car started to catch fire.
They left it and hid in an old broken building they found in the fields.
They hid there for 20 minutes, while rockets and drones keeps exploding near them.
At some point they heard a car and ran to the road and screamed for help.
When I met him the day after, I asked him:
Why did you got out?
We just saw terrorists dressed as cops, they have infiltrated everywhere and you might trust no one?
They stayed there for 8 hours until the army came to pick them up.
We all got home safely.
Maybe it was a miracle, or a divine intervention, or just dumb luck.
I believe we will never know.
We are still in shock, talking about it and getting together often to be there for each other.
You remember I told you about Mor earlier?
Well, she was there with us that night.
So she came to the party to say goodbye.
She stayed until 6:10am, just 10 minutes before it all started.
So the red alert alarms caught her on the way home.
She lived all of her life in the south, so hearing alarms was kind of routine for her.
So she did what she knows; she stopped the car near a shelter and hid in it.
Around 6:50 she left the shelter to drive home and at that time all of the roads were compromised.
They found her and slaughtered her.
Right on the spot.
Like it was nothing.
And they continued to murder people.
We found her body a couple of days later.
35 people died there, but 20 survived.
For all of that, I made that tattoo, for myself, for my friends and for Mor.
21 of us came to the party, but only 20 of us got back.
