1:59

and body parts, something very important to

2:02

Jews is to make sure you have every

2:04

single piece of a dead body. You

2:07

tell us you were one of the first people to

2:09

arrive at the scene of the party, after

2:11

the party, and can

2:14

you tell us what kinds of things you saw? Where

2:17

did you find the bodies? What situation?

2:19

I'm not believing what I see.

2:22

It's not real. I think

2:24

all the day what I see, what I do, and

2:27

it's not a sense, because it's not

2:29

believable. We come here with ambulance.

2:33

We come to the party,

2:34

and I see just

2:38

everything is bodies. Everything.

2:40

A lot of blood, a lot of

2:43

shooting.

2:44

And then you were telling us that you

2:46

were driving around to look for

2:49

more bodies. Like, where did you find the bodies?

2:51

Where I'm not going? Where I'm not going, I

2:53

see bodies. I'm not. I'm going here, I

2:55

see. I'm going here, I see. In cars?

2:57

In cars? Inside? No matter where.

3:00

Where you see, you see. Bodies, bodies,

3:02

bodies, bodies. I'm driving, and I take

3:04

care of my car. Less, less, right.

3:07

People don't believe me. People,

3:09

I'm not believing. I'm not believing.

3:11

Do you know how many bodies you've

3:14

collected since you started? Because, I mean...

3:16

Me? Yeah, just you, personally,

3:19

or all the friends.

3:20

May I? One of them? A hundred? This

3:23

is in four hours. Something like this.

3:26

Four hours. Four hours, we go out, all

3:28

the bodies, we take them.

3:31

What do you think about the Hamas now? Does

3:33

this change anything for you? You

3:36

know, I think, before, I think,

3:38

you know, we look like, okay,

3:41

but now, nothing.

3:45

I see stuff, and

3:47

only

3:48

in shawah, we see this. Why?

3:53

I'm not believing. This is the first

3:55

time I speak with that, and... I'm

3:58

not speaking of my family. the family call all

4:01

the time. I don't know what to

4:03

do more. What to do after this

4:05

is... What

4:09

next?

4:13

We

4:16

had to cut the interview short because they've been

4:19

called to go and collect more bodies now in

4:21

the South. It's not ending.

4:26

One of the hardest hit areas was Kibbutz

4:29

Kvar Aza. Kvar Aza

4:31

is just one kilometer and a half from the fence

4:33

with Gaza. Some background, a Kibbutz

4:35

is a collective farm settlement where residents live

4:38

and raise families in a communal way. Natalie

4:41

spoke to Doron Admoni, age 67,

4:44

who lost his wife, Mikal, and his

4:46

25-year-old son. At the time of the

4:48

attack, Doron was in California

4:51

visiting his son, Ran, and meeting his newborn

4:53

grandchild. How

4:54

are you? Terrible.

4:58

We have a difficult situation

5:00

now.

5:02

My name is Doron Admoni. I'm 67

5:04

years old, living

5:07

in Kibbutz, Kvar Aza. My

5:10

wife was Mikal. She

5:13

was 66 years

5:16

old. I have four

5:18

kids. And

5:21

that's all now. The terrorists

5:24

killed my wife, Mikal, and

5:27

my son, Guy. They

5:29

were at home on Saturday

5:32

morning. Mikal is 100%

5:35

disability, and Guy

5:38

came to the weekend to be with her

5:41

because me and my older

5:44

daughter, we've been in the US

5:46

to visit our new granddaughter.

5:49

She was

5:50

born three months ago, and

5:54

when it all happened, we've been

5:56

in the US. Six o'clock

5:58

in the morning, Israel time. on

6:00

Saturday morning. My

6:03

wife, Pichal, sent the SMS. The

6:05

terrible situation now at home. The

6:08

dog has run away from home.

6:11

She's worried about him,

6:13

our dog. And after

6:16

five minutes, there's no contact

6:18

with her anymore by phone. And

6:22

after when I will get SMS

6:26

from the kibbutz, our friend started

6:29

to understand the situation now in the kibbutz.

6:32

And after 15 minutes, I felt I

6:35

was in California. I

6:37

felt that at that moment

6:40

that Pichal and Guy killed.

6:43

They are not with us anymore. This

6:46

was my feeling. No

6:48

chance for them. And

6:51

now we know

6:53

exactly that Guy and Pichal killed

6:56

at home. They found them. And

6:59

I know that Guy

7:02

supported his mom. And

7:05

he never lived with

7:08

her. And they

7:10

killed them when they are together.

7:14

First of all, it helped me. It's

7:17

been yesterday. They told me about

7:19

it. I was happy for

7:22

Pichal and Guy. And

7:24

Guy all the life when he was

7:26

young in his classroom. The

7:29

teacher asked the kids, what

7:32

do you think everyone will be in another 20

7:34

years? He said, every

7:38

kid said I will be a doctor. He

7:40

said I will be a prime minister or

7:42

I will die for my country.

7:45

And he died. He killed for

7:48

his country. He was a

7:50

dream soldier to protect

7:53

his country, to do the best he

7:57

can do for his country.

8:00

to die, to die for the country.

8:03

This was the way that he died.

8:06

It disappeared from our world. It

8:08

was a light for the world. And

8:11

he was, this year,

8:13

was very happy. Last

8:15

month he was with his girlfriend in

8:18

Paris one week. He

8:21

was very high. He died

8:24

with his mom, with love. And

8:28

now we

8:30

have to see how

8:32

we continue the life, our life.

8:35

That's all. I must to

8:39

be strong and to

8:43

rebuild the family from the beginning now.

9:08

Here's an account from a woman named Eleanor

9:10

who fled with her husband and children into

9:12

a safe room when terrorists invaded their

9:14

home in Kibbutzkvarasa.

9:17

My name is Eleanor and

9:19

I live in Kibbutzkvarasa for the last 15

9:21

years. So Saturday

9:24

morning, October 7, was

9:26

the day of Sukkot holiday.

9:29

And so 6.30 in the morning the siren

9:32

went on. And

9:35

it's a drill that we know. We know what we

9:37

do when we get the siren, we get into the

9:39

shelter, into the safety

9:41

room, and we lock the door. And

9:44

I think it took at least seven

9:46

minutes when the siren kept going

9:49

on and on and on and on and on.

9:52

My husband looked at me

9:54

and he whispered and said

9:57

something's different.

9:59

I smell something else. So

10:03

he started running around the house, closing

10:05

on the doors and other windows. Before

10:08

we even understand and we understood

10:10

something happened, I heard him

10:13

grabbing things. So he brought

10:15

this huge three

10:18

kitchen knife. Now I'm thinking it was

10:20

so naive

10:21

and so... We

10:23

could not even imagine that people can do

10:26

whatever happened there. And

10:28

I think it was less than 10 minutes,

10:31

even before the official announcement from the kibbutz

10:33

management arrived, that

10:35

he looked at us. We

10:38

all said, and he told the kids, please

10:40

open your eyes. There's terrorists

10:42

in the kibbutz. I need everybody

10:44

to listen to me. And

10:47

the look on his eyes was

10:49

terrible. I

10:51

mean, he looked at us, lots

10:53

of pain, but also he

10:56

had a lot of courage and he said, I

10:58

will tell you what to do. We heard noises.

11:01

We heard people running outside. We

11:03

heard Allahu Akbar. We heard

11:05

noises that not normal

11:08

neighborhood as we used to have. And

11:12

suddenly we heard this huge bomb and

11:14

we were sure that

11:16

terrorists in our house would

11:18

let the kids under my son's bed. We

11:21

heard people walking. We heard them. We

11:24

thought they were in their house. We

11:26

heard them walking around the house for sure.

11:29

We heard them on the roof. And

11:31

every once in a while, they

11:33

just shot. I don't know if they shot someone or

11:35

just

11:35

to terrify us.

11:38

They kept us in stress

11:40

for so many hours and

11:43

they terrified us in every single

11:45

way they could have done it. And

11:48

the stories keep going on. Who saw

11:51

families? Did anyone

11:54

talk to this? And we already knew

11:56

that our friend who was the

11:58

mayor of our council. General

12:02

got murdered. He was in my kibbutz.

12:04

And his mother-in-law, 83, survived

12:06

cancer. Why

12:11

would you shoot her? What could have done

12:14

anything to you? And his son is

12:16

missing, still missing. And his

12:18

nephew jumped on... Grenades.

12:22

Grenades. Grenades, thank you. And this

12:25

is how he rescued and survived his girlfriend.

12:28

And one family who lost five

12:30

people for nothing.

12:33

And in the whole community, we're

12:35

still counting, we're still not sure. We lost 65

12:39

people in our community. Just

12:42

unbelievable that we survived it. I think emotionally,

12:45

we will never forget it.

12:49

Sorry, no words. We

12:52

just actually celebrate our 15th

12:54

anniversary in Iqbalaza on

12:57

Sunday. And when I told my

12:59

kids that October 8th is

13:01

the date, my oldest child,

13:03

who's 19, looked at me and says,

13:06

we got a present. We got our life. And

13:09

of course, we immediately cried. Is

13:13

there any message you want the

13:16

world to know? They

13:18

butchered us. They butchered

13:20

us, family after family, house

13:23

after house. And it's

13:26

horrible. It's just horrible.

13:30

I don't think I have the words in English to describe

13:32

how furious I am

13:35

and how sad

13:37

I am and how just

13:39

when my normal life... I just want

13:41

to be again Eleanor. Let's see. National Eleanor

13:44

from Farsa, where I'm staying where

13:46

I am from and everybody's looking at me and

13:48

more for me. It's

13:51

almost a week, almost a week that we're outside

13:53

at home.

13:54

Sorry, I didn't think I would cry. You

13:56

don't have to...

14:01

The next interview is with a man named Mark

14:04

Jaffee. Mark and his wife immigrated

14:06

from England about 20 years ago. Mark's

14:09

adult son manages their thrift store

14:11

WhatsApp group from his home in Tel Aviv.

14:14

That text thread quickly became the main

14:16

source of information and communication between

14:19

the hundreds of members for the 23 hours

14:21

that they were held captive in their safety rooms. The

14:24

messages are now an accurate record of

14:26

which house got attacked when. Here's

14:28

Mark's story.

14:30

We're very used to being woken up by

14:33

warnings of rockets.

14:35

We had such a warning at 6.30 in

14:38

the morning, something of that sort. And

14:41

we have 10 seconds basically

14:43

between the warning and the rocket falling. So

14:46

we're very used to not

14:48

thinking and jumping out of

14:50

bed and running for our

14:53

safe area in the house, which is what we did.

14:56

We're also close enough to the border to hear all

14:58

the rockets leaving. In other words,

15:01

when the Hamas fire

15:04

rockets, we can hear them leaving. The

15:06

rockets are big enough to make a

15:08

sound when they get fired off,

15:11

the long-range ones. So

15:13

we began to realize that

15:15

there was a very large rocket

15:18

attack. And at that point

15:20

I started hearing lots

15:23

of shouting outside in the

15:26

vicinity of the house. And I started

15:28

getting dressed to go out and help, which

15:30

is what I usually do under those circumstances.

15:34

And I was just about to open the front door

15:36

when this started being accompanied

15:38

by long bursts of

15:41

automatic fire, which

15:43

is at the point I realized that I wasn't going to

15:45

go out of the house. We

15:49

went back in the safe form. Must have been about

15:51

seven o'clock at that point. Closed

15:53

the door. And we were there until

15:57

two o'clock the following morning when we were rescued.

16:01

Luckily, we had electricity all of that

16:03

time, so we could follow

16:06

what was going on outside and we could

16:08

hear everything that happened in our area

16:10

as well. We had two main

16:12

WhatsApp groups that were running at the

16:14

time. People joined it from all

16:16

over. It had about 450 members in it

16:19

very quickly. And

16:21

it became the

16:23

main way of people reporting what

16:26

was going on where. It was a

16:28

very unofficial and a very disturbing

16:32

sort of line of they are here.

16:34

They are coming in. They're on

16:36

my roof. Their shots

16:40

are being fired outside my house. Come and

16:42

help.

16:43

These sorts of things. They managed

16:45

to force their way into two of

16:47

the safe houses and murdered the people who were in

16:49

it. And with that, you could tell from their

16:52

last WhatsApp messages where they said they

16:54

forced their way in or they're trying to force their way

16:56

in and then they stopped sending messages.

16:59

So we were basically sitting there waiting for it to be

17:01

our turn and they

17:03

didn't. So I guess

17:05

at about two or three, I'm not really sure the time,

17:07

we were evacuated from their turn

17:09

that he thought, which is a town about 10

17:12

kilometers away.

17:13

You and your wife are okay

17:15

and your children are okay, oh God.

17:18

Yes, and I don't know how. I mean,

17:20

it's complete Russian roulette as

17:22

to who survived it. Okay. And

17:25

who didn't. I can't explain

17:27

it. There's no explanation as to

17:29

why they didn't even try and get in our

17:31

house. I don't just luck. I

17:34

mean, and I

17:36

don't know why people are still psychologically

17:39

whole here.

17:40

The Jewish way life goes on.

17:42

Keep moving.

17:43

Yes.

17:47

Yes.

17:50

Over a thousand lives were

17:52

lost in the terror attacks on October 7th. These

17:55

stories represent just a few

17:57

of the human tragedies.

17:58

Special thanks to our correspondent, Natalie

18:01

Mann, for bringing us these interviews

18:02

from Israel. And thank you

18:04

to our listeners for tuning in this morning. This

18:07

has been a Sunday edition of Morning Wire.