I didn’t expect to cry in someone else’s living room that day. I certainly didn’t expect to feel so at home, and so heartbroken, among women I had only just met.
When I traveled south recently with my friend Yair from Israel Destination, I thought I was prepared. I had seen the devastation of Gaza border area towns in southern Israel six months after Hamas’s invasion and massacres on October 7, 2023.
Since then, I have read testimonies, watched interviews, and followed every update. But nothing prepares you for sitting face-to-face with mothers who lived through the unthinkable. These women opened the doors of their homes in a temporary kibbutz, poured us coffee, and welcomed us with a warmth that defies everything they endured. We didn’t film them. We didn’t take photos. This wasn’t “terror tourism.” We simply listened.
Kfar Aza was meant to be a peaceful haven, where families raised their children in peace, and believed in coexistence with their neighbors in Gaza. Yet on October 7, everything changed.
Families could not shield their children from the terror unfolding just steps from their door, as they witnessed their neighbors getting slaughtered. The women we met are from one of the hardest-hit communities – Kibbutz Kfar Aza.
The mothers of Kfar Aza
Amit, a mother of three, spent 35 hours trapped in her home while terrorists used the house next door as their headquarters. Her children were seven, five (he “celebrated” his birthday in the safe room), and one year and eight months old.
Every sound, every vibration, every breath could have exposed them. She made them watch SpongeBob on the family iPad 11 times under the bed to keep them quiet. She couldn’t flush the toilet. Every step, every breath, was a calculation for survival.
She told us about her husband hearing someone crying for help outside and saying: “I have to go.” In a moment no mother should face, she had to weigh morality against survival. Let him go, and the children may lose their father. Stop him, and someone outside dies alone. There is no parenting book for that.
When we asked why Hamas never entered their home, her answer was simple: a miracle. It was completely random. The terrorists had chosen certain houses to enter and kill, others to pass by. That randomness had saved them.
Maya welcomed us into her home with a warmth and laughter that seemed almost defiant, given what she had endured. During the attack, she and her husband shielded their baby and their home while hearing terrorists murder neighbors outside.
Her thoughts were constantly with her extended family, all of whom lived on the kibbutz. Some survived. Some did not. Her sister and brother-in-law were murdered, leaving their 10-month-old twins orphaned.
Maya found surreal glimpses of dark humor to share with us. Even as terrorists from Gaza went on a killing spree outside their front door, she kept praying, every time she had to quietly sneak to the toilet: “Please don’t let me die on the toilet – such an awkward way to go.” The ability to laugh at such a moment is its own kind of miracle.
Olga, another mother we met, told us that her daughters were at a sleepover in another house in the kibbutz. She knew terrorists took over that house, but she lost communication with them. She sat trapped in darkness for hours, listening to gunfire and screams, not knowing the fate of her daughters. Her, and her children’s, survival, too, was miraculous.
We also met Ellay, a young mother whose story defies belief. On that fateful day, she, her husband, and their baby were set on fire by Hamas. They miraculously managed to escape the kibbutz wounded, with fourth-degree burns. Today, if you saw them, you wouldn’t know the horrors that they survived. If this is not God’s miraculous protection, I don’t know what is.
An open wound
For all of them, October 7 is not just a date. It is a wound that has yet to close. Maya’s words are searingly clear: “October 7 is not over. As long as Hamas and the ideology of killing Jews exist so close, it is not over. We are not safe.”
These women, who once believed in coexistence, told us it was not only Hamas that committed the October 7 horrors; civilians from Gaza participated in the murder, rape, burning, stealing, and all the violence in the kibbutz.
Let that sink in.
Two years later, these families live in temporary housing, moving from place to place, trying desperately to give their children stability and a sense of normality. Yet, despite everything, they laugh. They love. They rebuild their inner worlds.
How can leaders like France’s Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s Keir Starmer, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, or Canada’s Mark Carney give the reward of a “Palestinian state” to people who inflicted the horrors of mass slaughter, sexual violence, burning, and kidnapping on the citizens of a sovereign nation simply because they are Jewish?
I would urge European, American, or Australian mothers to spare a thought for Israeli children who spent hours locked in safe rooms, listening to unspeakable horrors outside.
I wish that college kids and their progressive professors chanting genocidal slogans would think about the twins who lost their parents in October 2023 instead of glorifying a so-called “resistance.”
Before we left, the brave young mothers asked us to share their stories so that the world doesn’t forget what happened on October 7, 2023.
Remember Amit hiding her children under the bed, to stay quiet and alive.
Remember Maya comforting her baby, with terrorists on a rampage, slaughtering people outside; Olga alone in darkness, fearing for her children; and Ellay, with her husband and baby, burned yet miraculously surviving.
Remember their courage, love, and the miracles of Kfar Aza.
As a mother myself, my heart aches when I imagine even a moment of what these women endured. Their courage and relentless devotion to protecting their children resonate deeply with me. It reminds me that motherhood is an extraordinary force for survival.
Share the stories of Kfar Aza’s mothers.
The author is a German-Indian writer dedicated to strengthening ties between Israel and the global community.