Golan’s Story

In the weeks since Israel suffered the deadliest day in its history, fresh accounts have emerged in village after village of just how extreme and how widespread the violence actually was.

Today, the story of one man at the epicenter of that violence.

It's Friday, October 13th.

Hi, Gola, this is Sabrina Tavernisi from The Daily, from the New York Times Daily Podcast.

My age is 44.. I live in Kibbutz Berri. And I was born in the kibbutz. The kibbutz was established in 46.. It's older than the state of Israel.

And it's a quiet place surrounded by nature. And I've been living there all my life with my family.

We all take care of each other. And it's an amazing place to raise your kids in.

I didn't see them. I spent time with them. We ate dinner together. I saw my friends. We had some drinks.

And went to sleep like a normal Friday. And then we woke up in about 6.20 in the morning to the sound of launching missiles.

It was a huge, huge launch. And I remember telling my wife, what is going on? What is? It's out of the blue. We are on the border of Gaza.

We know what it's like to have missile attacks. We are used to it. But this time it was weird. It was suddenly and it was so intensive. And a few minutes later, we got a text message.

We have an app of the community. So we got a text that there is an invasion to the kibbutz. And that we should lock ourselves in the shelter.

In the second I got this message, I went to my safe and took my gun. It's a pistol. It's a small 9mm pistol. And it's what I have for personal defense. So the first thing that felt right to do for me is to take the gun out and lock my family in the shelter.

And then took a front position in the kitchen, where I can have a better view of the neighborhood. And if someone comes, I can respond and engage before they come to my house.

And next we started to hear shooting. And we started to hear talks in Arabic. And I was looking outside of the kitchen windows. And then I saw in the outside perimeter of my neighborhood, I saw some terrorists standing outside with RPGs and heavy machine guns.

And it was horrible. I didn't know what to do. If he's alive, if he's dead. I didn't know. I just saw them exiting the apartment.

And then there was units starting entering the neighborhood.

I saw them going near one of the families and start shouting, like IDF, IDF, to make my neighbors think that they are from the IDF and they will give up and get out.

And I text my friend, I don't think it's the IDF. Don't open the door.

And then I heard Arabic from real, real close. And I heard shooting from real close. And I saw from around the corner, terrorists. I saw them going towards my balcony. I was standing at my post, at the kitchen.

And I just saw them coming from around the corner. I saw their face.

And you could see murder in their eyes. I saw in their eyes, they are going to kill my family. I need to shoot now, or else it's going to be my family. It's now or never.

So I started shooting. I gave a burst of five or six bullets toward them. And they shot back at my home. They shot with automatic weapons. So then I'm shooting now from here.

And I'm going to a different position to shoot from a different position. Because you don't fire twice from the same position. So it seems like there are more than one armed person inside the house. In Israel, you join the army at the age of 18. And then you do a reserve duty until you are about the age of 40..

So you don't think. You act like a warrior. You switch to a different mood. And it's like a muscle memory. And it's like a slow motion movie.

Everything is slow. You see every move like flow.

And then you hear them shooting back. It's like a fast forward. You jump to the floor and hide from the bullets.

But the fear is set aside and now it's time to engage the enemy.

So then, after several bursts of fire toward the balcony and toward the rest of the house, they shot the house from many positions. But my family were in the safe room and a safe room can stand the hit of a missile.

So I wasn't worried about them. It's OK. Shoot the house as much as you like. I'm on the floor. It's OK now.

And then I don't know why they left.

They decided to go. They went to a different house.

Then it got quiet. It got quiet. When I say quiet, I mean I didn't see any attackers, any terrorists outside. You could always hear all the time the noise of weapons shooting outside. I can hear them throwing grenades, but I didn't see for like an hour anyone else.

And then I heard one of my neighbors texting in the group of the neighborhood that they are in his house and they are trying to break into the safe room. But he was holding on to the lever so they won't be able to open the door. Then I guess they got tired of trying to and they just set the house on fire.

And at first I didn't see the fire. Then I heard a weird noise, a weird unfamiliar noise of cracking stuff. It seems like stuff is cracking, cracking wood. And I looked outside and I saw all the top floor on fire. And they started texting that the fire, the smoke, is getting inside the safe room.

And in the kibbutz text group, they said, you need to put wet fabric on your mouth to shield you from the smoke. But the house is on fire and in certain time it wasn't safe for them anymore. And I told them I don't see anyone outside from my position. So they jumped to the ground level. The family was the two kids and ran straight to the neighbor's house and got inside to his safe room together with him.

And then, in the text group, a daughter of one of my best friends just sent a recording of her. She wasn't shouting. She was whispering.

Help us. My mother and brother are dying. My father is hurt and he's dying. They're trying to enter the house and he's on fire. And she just kept on sending this kind of message.

And I know this girl. I know she's a good friend of my girls. She's been to our house several times. I used to work with her father. We're one family.

We're like one family. I hear her recording. Just help us. Help us. My father is dying.

My mother is already dead. My older brother is lying dead. And you feel helpless.

She had to see her parents critically injured in front of her eyes. And just, she couldn't do anything.

And I couldn't do anything. And no one could do anything.

Later on, I heard they managed to rescue both of them after shooting with a tank because there were terrorists inside their home. And they survived. The girl is okay. And their father just got out of surgery. He lost his leg.

But he's alive. He's with us. Not like a lot of my friends.

So I knew things are going to change, but I don't know how long it's going to take. And then a unit of the army came and took us out. It was nighttime. But we could see a lot.

To see the kibbutz burned to the ground.

It was horrible.

We could see the house of my neighbors. Normally, when you have a fire in the house, the firefighters are coming and they put out the fire. But here I could see the fire dies out after burning everything.

We were encircled by the soldiers who kept us safe and took us. And they told us to close the eyes of the young kids so they won't see the dead bodies of the terrorists lying outside. So they won't have to have these kind of memories in their mind. They won't be scarred more than they are already scarred.

And we went to the entrance of the kibbutz and they took us to the evacuation area. And we were just about to go on a truck, an army truck, to evacuate us. And then, from the bushes, one of the terrorists just started shooting at us. With no cover. And I had to lie on my kids and protect them, my twins.

I had to shelter them with my body and shout to my kids. I lost my two grown up kids. I shouted to them, where are you, where are you? It seems like forever, but they killed the terrorists very quickly, the soldiers.

And no one was injured.

I just can't describe the feeling. It just felt like an eternity.

And later on we were evacuated to the hotel in the Dead Sea, where we are now.

And they were starting to read the names of the people we know are dead. And each one of the members got the page and started reading like 10 names. And then collapsed back. And then the other one next to him stand and start reading some more names. And sit back.

And like, I don't know how many. I don't know how many. I couldn't count. And then I know each one of them. I know each one of them.

And they read the names. And they paused and said, now we are going to read the names of the people. We don't know where they are.

And it was just as long.

A good friend of mine, she was, they broke into her safe room. They pulled her out, she and her kids. And they told them to sit outside. And they took all the men and the boys from this group. Put them on a truck.

And just went to Gaza. And they took her son. The best friend of my son is 16 years old. The most adorable, gentle kid. And they just ripped him away from the hands of his mother.

And my son is devastated. And we are all devastated. And we don't know what happened to our family. We don't know what happened to our friends. We know that they killed one out of ten of our community.

One out of ten is dead.

But a lot more were taken. They took babies. They took kids. They took elderly people. 18 years old woman.

She was like my grandmother. I know her from the day I was born. She was like my grandmother. And we were laughing together like two weeks ago. And now they took her.

Why?

They are not fighting to liberate their country. And our community donated every year money to some people who used to work in the kibbutz.

And pick up with her car children and take them to get dialysis in Israeli hospitals. And now she is in Gaza. We are liberal persons. We don't believe that all of the people in Gaza are evil. We don't believe.

We didn't believe. I'm sorry. We didn't believe. I don't know what I'm thinking now. I don't know what to think now.

Because we always thought that peace and negotiation is the solution. And I don't think anyone thinks now. we lost our faith. We don't think there could be any kind of reason to talk with these animals that destroyed my kibbutz. Kidnapped my family.

And we want them back. We can't be a community without them. They are part of us. It's like a jigsaw puzzle. You can't take one piece and it will be okay.

The ones that are dead are gone. Okay. But we need them. We need the ones that survived. Get my neighbors back.

I want them back. They are my friends. They are my family. I want them back.

And I go in the hotel and it's like a roller coaster of emotions. Because I hear someone just died and it breaks my heart and I collapse. And a second later I see someone arriving that I was sure that he was dead and I was afraid to ask. And then another one is dead. And another one alive, and it's a roller coaster of emotions.

They know about their friends that were kidnapped and they knows about their friends that were slaughtered. They know.

And there will never be kids again.

Their childhood is over.

And I know my son will never be the same again. His childhood is over. His friends are dead or gone in Gaza. And now we need to start to rebuild our life from scratch. And from the moment we arrived here, we rebuild infrastructure of the community.

There is a person in charge of finding people a place to sleep in. Someone who is in charge of activities for the kids. And we have a person who is in charge of the elderly persons. And the nurse of the kibbutz is in charge of getting people their medicines that they left back at home. We rebuild our community here in the hotel.

So we could survive the day to come. Because we don't know how long we are going to be here. We don't know if we have a place to go back to. I don't know if my home is still standing. I don't know.

And it's still under army quarantine. So we can't go back home. We are here like refugees. So for now, I'm still in the hotel. And trying to hold on.

Trying to go on one day at a time.

So many friends of mine died. So many. When half of your friend died, there is no coming back. I'm not going to be the same person as before. I'm trying to keep my humor as much as I can.

But none of us are going to be the same again. My kids are not going to be the same again. I'm not going to be the same again. None of us. Israel is not going to be the same again.

We went through a second Holocaust. And unfortunately, I had the opportunity to be in the front line.

We are not going to be the same.

In Gaza, at least 1,537 people, including 500 children, have been killed in airstrikes that Israel has conducted in retaliation for the attack.

And, late Thursday night, Israel's military told the United Nations that the entire population of northern Gaza, about 1 million people, should relocate to the southern half of the territory in 24 hours. The UN said it had strongly appealed for the order to be rescinded to avoid making, quote, what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation.

We'll be right back.

Scalise was nominated for the role on Wednesday, but he failed to muster enough votes to be elected because hardline Republicans balked at supporting him. Instead, they threw their weight behind his challenger, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the right-wing Republican endorsed by former President Donald Trump. The surprise move left the House Republican caucus in chaos, with no clear end in sight. Scalise said he would step aside in hopes that someone else could unite the fractious party.

Today's episode was produced by Lindsay Garrison, Ricky Nowetzki, and Diana Wynne, with help from Summer Tamad. It was edited by M.J. Davis-Lynn, with help from Paige Cowett and Michael Benoit. Contains, original music by Dan Powell, Marian Lozano, and Alicia Bet-Youtube, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Van Lansburg of Wonderly.

That's it for The Daily. I'm Sabrina Tavernisi. See you on Monday.