CREW: Okay.
[BACKGROUND NOISE] CREW: [HEBREW] INT: Today is October 30th, 2023. I'm Natalie Mann
interviewing Tali Enoshi Arad for the USC Shoah Foundation. We're in Kibbutz Ein Gedi
and the interview will be in English. [PAUSES 11 SECONDS]
[BACKGROUND NOISE] So thank you,
Tali, for speaking with us today. We're here to hear anything
that you want to tell us. If you want to stop the interview
at any time, please feel free to do so. We're just here to hear your story. TEA: So, should I start
by introducing myself? INT: Yes, please TEA: So my name is Tali Enoshi. I'm 37. I had the pleasure of being a resident of Holit, Kibbutz Holit for two months,
before October 7th, 2023. We moved to the Kibbutz, looking
to start a new chapter in our lives. Me and my husband
and my three year old daughter. We moved there from the big city. And obviously it was a very big
change, although very much desired, and one we were planning for a long
time and we were looking to do at the right moment in our lives, and we moved there on a,
during August, and for two months life were great,
we were amazing. We felt at home right at home
from the very first day. It's a very small, tight,
knit community and people were very welcoming,
very friendly. It felt like an extended
family of sorts and just exactly what we wanted,
exactly like it should have been. We felt like it was home very quickly. My daughter, especially being three, and never having lived anywhere else
but the big city she was very happy with,
and she could articulate it that she's happy with her life, with
her friends, with her kindergarten, and that's it. I mean, we had the opportunity
beforehand to live many, many places around the world. We had the opportunity to live for
a few years in the US, in Boston and in Marseille, for work purposes,
for the diplomatic service. But Holit was home
from the very first second. And it was like we should have
been there all along. And that's it. We... that's it. INT: Okay. So, can you tell us. Take us back to October 7th, and tell us the story of
what you've experienced TEA: So October 7th was obviously
a Saturday. We were all asleep together
in the master bedroom and we woke up around 6:30 to sirens of Red Alert going off and the sound of missiles outside. Obviously we didn't give it
too much thought. We ran to the safety room and we
figured it's going to be a short thing, but my husband opened his phone
and realized they were already firing at the center of Israel for 30 minutes,
and that seemed very odd. We realized that might mean that it's going to be a long set
in the safety room. So we waited for a lull in the missiles, so he can go out, and get us something to drink
for her, some candy, her iPad,
something to keep us to keep her occupied for, we figured, an hour
until everything dies down. And he went outside, closed up everything he could,
shutters, the doors, the windows, the lights,
and went back in. We closed ourselves up, and that was
maybe a matter of a couple of minutes. And then, we started hearing
automatic gunfire outside the house, INT: Did your husband close
the doors? [INTERPOSING VOICES] TEA: Because the shutters -- we have electric shutters on all the windows who are designed to be resistant of missile blowback
or ricochets. So they're supposed to protect
the windows and the doors. So he just automatically pressed the
buttons to get them all down, and made sure
that everything was just closed up. I mean, we usually go to bed
closing everything up because we don't want natural light
to wake us up at 5 a.m. on Shabbat. And it was already mostly closed up. And so we just made sure
everything was all tight to make sure
everything stays nice and safe. And we went into the safety room. Our houses specifically
are very new in the Kibbutz. It's a new neighborhood that
was designed with the people, the house resistance in mind to keep it safe in terms of missiles. So the walls are that much
more thicker. The windows are made to withstand some aftershocks from missiles. And so we just made sure
everything was closed up. We didn't know... Sometimes missiles land inside the
Kibbutz, I presume, or things could break. So we just wanted to be that
much sure, the new guys. So you're as the new guys,
you're always green and crossing all the T's and dotting all the I's. But just a matter of 2 or 3 minutes,
it got her some candy and milk and went back into the safety room. That's when we started hearing
automatic gunfire. And being both of us, former IDF, like most Israelis, we knew that,
that was not the IDF firing outside because soldiers, IDF soldiers would not use
the automatic functions in their weapons. And we could hear somebody reacting with single shots,
which we now presume to be the head of the security unit in the Kibbutz, the [HEBREW], Avi [?Korin?].
May he rest in peace. We now we know that, I've learned just yesterday, that they took out a piece of the fence that was just around,
just behind my own house. And that's one of the ways
they went into the Kibbutz. But at that particular moment,
we knew there were -- we assumed that those
were terrorists, but we had no way of knowing
the scope of the situation. So we started to look,
to open up our phones and looking into what's going on,
what people are saying. In the Kibbutz,
they were a little hesitant at first. Some houses didn't hear
the gunfire yet because it was on the, at the perimeter first. I assume we know that they went in
from a few angles from our side, which is the one overlooking Rafah. Our house is the one right up against
the fence overlooking Rafah to the west, and they also went from the other side and
went through the fence on the other side on the east of the Kibbutz, as far
as I know, maybe from other directions. I don't know at this point. And we knew there were terrorists
in the Kibbutz, but again, we assumed something on a short on a,
on a small level could happen. It happened before in Israel, people would
infiltrate communities near the border, and that's why we had security
teams that could react. But that was not the case that day. But we don't know the exact,
numbers that went into Holit, but we know it was around the 100. Maybe. Again, this is a very small community. INT: So it's like. TEA: 80 members, 200 tops,
with children and people who are domestic, foreign workers who come to work in agriculture, maybe 200 altogether before the 7th. So people were talking on the WhatsApp
group, Kibbutz WhatsApp group. Everybody were instructed to stay put,
close up everything and stay as quiet as possible. And we figured it was going to be a
short while before the military joins us. We started getting messages
from family members in the center, they were also sitting in their
safety rooms because there was a missile attack on Tel Aviv and the rest
of the central part of Israel, but they were much more
attuned to the news. We had no cell reception
because I assume the cell tower was damaged
in some way, but, so we couldn't get
any cell reception, any way of listening to the news. Other than just waiting for WhatsApp to
download a few messages every few minutes, every ten minutes, 20 minutes,
there was no internet in the Kibbutz, so nothing to do
but wait for some form of information coming in
through WhatsApp. And we started getting pictures
that were already circulating the social media, I assume, of people being
gunned down in Sderot, in the street. That's when we understood this to be a very big event, very wide event. And then, still we assumed
the military would react as quickly as it's supposed to and will come and get us out. And we were sitting there
for maybe an hour or two, assuming it's just a matter of minutes. My sister-in-law is a retired officer from the IDF, and she called me and she
texted me because we couldn't speak. We knew there were
terrorists outside. She texted me, "Don't worry,
the military will be there soon." "Don't worry." "It's just a matter of maybe
30 minutes, an hour". And I just had to maintain
some form of hope. My daughter was awake
but occupied using her iPad. We had a few videos we downloaded
a while back, which were enough to keep her occupied for a couple of hours
and she was being quiet, so we were fine. That's when we started hearing
that they're going into houses. We started getting the news from
what's going on in other Kibbutzim, Be'eri and Kfar Aza, and we knew
what they were doing there. INT: You know what time this is
around? TEA: I think around 10:00, I don't remember precisely around
the morning, started hearing our neighbors saying they're trying to get
into the house, or they managed to get into the house and they're trying to get
into the safety room, which people try to barricade themselves in, in any,
in every sort, every way possible. I mean, putting things up against
the door, trying to block the handle from opening because the doors are not designed
to be locked solely from the outside, from the inside. I mean, it's supposed to be able to be
opened by first responders from the outside, so there's no way of locking
the door because it's not designed to withstand a terrorist attack directly on
the people sitting inside the safety room. It's not a panic room.
It's made to withstand a missile attack. But that day was a different issue. We figured we started hearing
our neighbors saying they're going in. They the people are wounded.
No particulars specifically, at that time.
They were talking about the military having been notified. One member of the Kibbutz
who wasn't in the Kibbutz, thank God, at that,
during that weekend, a dear friend of mine,
was visiting her parents and she was away
from the situation. She has a, she had a full -- She had all means to her,
disposed to her to help us communicate
with the outside. So she started looking to people who can get help,
bring reinforcement. Because our security team
was very small. Maybe three people had guns
in the whole community and they did whatever they could. But obviously it wasn't enough against
tens, maybe a hundred of terrorists. She started to turn to the media. She wanted us to talk to reporters,
to get them to bring awareness to Holit,
to let them know that we need help. That Kibbutz has been overrun,
essentially because it was every inhabitant of the Kibbutz was in mortal
danger, sitting in their homes, trying to keep quiet, trying to barricade
the doors, knowing that outside was pure mayhem and terror, and people
were there specifically for the purpose of murdering us,
and we had to turn to -- It was the most ironic
point in my life, because I used to be a very, very system oriented person.
I was very, understanding of the way
the system worked. Very a good, a good, goody
two-shoes girl, if you if you like. Yeah. My husband was asking, "maybe we should call the police,
let them know that there's there are people outside". And I told him, "Why? I mean, it's just going
to crowd the phone lines." People. Other people who need more help
wouldn't be able to call. And they know that there's... They
got to know that somebody is here. They got to know the other people
have notified the military that's what they said. So I was being very naive at that point.
No more, I guess. Obviously no one, nobody came. We know now that there was a group
of soldiers that arrived at the Kibbutz on their own accord, just volunteers
who showed up around noon. We don't know exactly what they were
able to do, but I know that they were able to get a few
people out of their houses and battle a number
of the terrorists. Again, we were there, sitting in the
safety room waiting to be rescued. Yeah. And I was in this very ironic
situation where I'm very aware of the gravity of
the situation, but I need to be very cool about it
because of my daughter. Because if she gets alerted,
if she gets scared, it's not going to do any good
for any of us. We didn't want her to be aware of
the gravity of that situation. So for a few hours we had the iPad and then, in some way, then the videos were all done. No cell reception, meaning
we couldn't redownload them. So nothing to occupy her by. Again, we were sitting in complete darkness
because we wanted nobody to know that we were in there, in the house. So...
INT: It was the safety room. Like, what do you usually use it for?
It's her bedroom. INT: Oh it's her bedroom?
TEA: Yeah. so it was full of toys, but complete darkness. And we had no air conditioning yet because we didn't install
the air conditioning yet in her bedroom.
And we didn't turn on the air filtering unit, because
it was very noisy. And some of the other neighbors
said that it made so much noise that it attracted unwanted attention. So we didn't even start it initially. And so we were sitting there in complete
darkness with a three year old with no air and hearing
gunfire outside, and we had to keep her entertained. So once the iPad was not an option, we managed to get her to sleep
for an hour, and when she woke up, she started demanding to go outside. She started demanding to be entertained. Play something,
obviously something that makes noise. INT: Normal 3 year old. TEA: Just like a regular, normal
3 year old. And I remember the first thought
going through my mind was maybe I should put a hand over her mouth,
because we could hear our neighbors from closer houses saying,
they're right outside our window. They're right there back here
in our neighborhood, in the vicinity of the house. And I remember thinking I should,
INT: What time is this? TEA: Around noon, maybe. and I remember thinking maybe
I should put a hand over her mouth. But the second thought that ran
through my mind was, knowing, that was the thought
that made my stomach turn. I remembered what was the result of certain similar situations
in the Holocaust, when mothers had to essentially
stifle the sounds from their babies using their hands, and they ended up
suffocating them unintentionally. And that actually gave me a chill. It's-- I can't even describe. I mean, it's, being a parent knowing that you're in
a certain situation where it's either your child's safety
or everybody's safety or essentially your child's
safety as well. So, we decided to try
and tell her the truth. We explained to her
that this was not a game. We can't go outside.
And she asked us why. She's a very smart kid. She has a very wide vocabulary
and she's very, very intelligent. So we told her in no uncertain terms. We we said there are
very bad people outside. They're looking to hurt us
and our friends and neighbors and they're looking for us. So we need to stay quiet so they
would not know that we're here. We closed the lights because we
don't want them to know we're here. So we're going to lie down right here
and talk very, very quietly until they go away. And she understood that. I could see
the wheels turning in her head. And I knew that I would have to face the trauma I just inflicted on her
at some point in our lives. But at least she's going to be quiet now. And obviously, like a normal three
year old, she forgot all about that in 20 minutes, and we had to remind her
again and again during the day. At some point, we heard that the
terrorists went into one of the houses and the parents in that house,
Liz and [?Meir?], God rest her soul, were murdered
in their safety room after they managed to stash their 7 year old girl in the closet, which is how they, which is how she survived
because they couldn't find her. So we realized they were circling back
to our neighborhood, and their intention was to get into houses
and kill whoever is inside. So we started explaining
to her that she needs to get under the bed
and stay quiet. And if people come into the house,
she should not go outside until she hears somebody
calling her name. I assumed if somebody survives
and they look for her, they'll call her by her name. And I hoped the terrorists wouldn't
know specifically how to address her because they didn't know Hebrew. They were dressed in some form of IDF resembling attire
to confuse us, and they tried luring people outside
by calling them from the outside and telling them to go out. And "It's okay,
it's the military", and stuff like that. Obviously, people were
quickly informed of that. We passed the word around and
people knew not to answer the door and not to open the windows to anyone,
even people addressing you in Hebrew. So we told her you are going to get
under the bed, and if we have to go away, you're going to be quiet
and not make a sound until you hear somebody calling you by your name. And she was hesitant. I mean,
"Why are you going, mommy?" "Where are you going to go?" And I don't know what we would
have done if that situation happened. We started clearing
the way to the door to make sure we can put
things against the door. We knew that we had no way of making
sure it's not going to be opened. We tried using some of her toys
to keep the handle from not turning. I know some of my neighbors just sat
by the door and held the handle the whole day through, and some
of them had to withstand attempts from the outside trying
to open the door. Some did, some didn't. Those who were not able to keep
them outside are not with us today to tell their story. And it's just,
it's devastating to know that people were gunned down,
murdered in their own house,
in their own bedroom. In the safety of their home on a holiday again, which is not uncommon in the history of
the Jewish people, but that was something we all hoped would never
happen again in this scope, in this way. I mean, all of us, especially people
who are just like myself, I'm third generation Holocaust survivors
and my husband as well, and we all know the stories and the nature of everything. And we also were educated on it in school and in the university. And we were interested in the matter
and we learned everything we could. We read every book we could.
We knew exactly that the situation is one that could
only be compared to the Holocaust. Although being one day
and not, obviously, 6 years of, and much more if you count
1933 through 1945. But still, we knew that the massacre
we were hearing about on the news being done around us to our neighbors, the two in other Kibbutzim
could not only be compared to that. And the fact that we were
waiting until, I guess, 4:00 p.m. for any
form of actual response to get to the Kibbutz and help us,
any actual force, soldiers that could help us,
just felt that much more distressing. I mean, we all went to serve in the
military knowing we had no other country, but this one and serving in the
military means we protect everyone, our families, and especially
to prevent stuff like that from happening. My parents were in the military
during the Yom Kippur War, and it was ironic how this was 50 years
to the day from that particular day, and we were back in another event
that was potentially there to destroy
the state of Israel, to destroy the Jewish people. And nothing was,
no one was coming to help. No, no army, no organized force was there in what
you would expect to be a normal time frame. I mean, I would expect an hour,
two, okay, three, okay? We were there for
twelve hours before the soldiers reached
our house and managed to convince us to open the window and let them in, clear the house. And that was one thing I don't think
I'm going to be able to forget, knowing that I know that many volunteers
and many, many soldiers and policemen and first responders tried their best and
gave their lives to help people that day. But it's unnerving to know that there wasn't an actual organized response
within a normal time frame for such a stronger military, or the one we hope to be
a very strong military. Again, no disrespect
to my fellow soldiers and reservists I mean, we were just waiting to be saved,
and I assume my family members in Czechoslovakia on their way to Sobibor
and Auschwitz were also waiting to be saved, and nobody was there to help them
because we had no country back there. But this time around,
we have a country, although one that must
have forgotten its role, and it failed the basic promise it gave the Jewish people,
which is a safe home, away from tyranny,
away from antisemitism. One that they can help.
The military is this, is the main, the fact that they can respond
in certain situations like I mean, it's one of the things
that you cannot overlook very quickly, very easily. I don't know. What else can you say? Come 6:00 p.m. around 6:00 p.m.,
the soldiers arrived, got us out of the safety room
for a minute or two. Looked around the house and we
realized the terrorists tried to get in. They attempted to break in using-- through the windows,
and they were not able because the shutters
were all closed up. And they were strong enough
to withstand whatever they whatever item, whatever force they tried
to inflict on them to get inside. They broke a few, but who cares?
They couldn't get in. Luckily, they missed the fact that there was a glass door
about 20m away from the same shutter
they tried to break, but it was blocked by a bunch of boxes
we couldn't unpack yet. So it was blocked from view. If they would have looked in there,
they would have gotten in the house very easily, and I can only imagine
what would have been the result. I mean, my 3 year old daughter
has gone to kindergarten in Kibbutz Nir Oz, where 16 children, as far as I know,
have been kidnapped with their family members, two of which were
her classmates from kindergarten INT: 3 year old.
TEA: Two 3 year old twin girls, Yuli and Emma Aloni, and her and their older sister
with their parents. And just the thought about of them being
there, knowing that my daughter and me and my husband could have been right with-- right along with
them in their situation, and knowing that nobody came to help
us on that day and not knowing what's going to be, to become of them today,
three weeks after that event, it's just, again, I can't even collect yourself from
such a situation. I mean, you, we all want to go back home.
We all want to rebuild the Kibbutz. I mean, my daughter has been
asking about when are we going home? Every day since. Not... She's been asking about when,
when is she going back to kindergarten? Because she loves her
teachers and her friends. But obviously we had to explain to her
that the Kibbutz is in shambles and the soldiers who helped us are
rebuilding, helping, fixing the Kibbutz. And when it's fixed, we can go home. And for the meantime,
we're here in a hotel, and but we're safe
and we're all together. And obviously we can't explain to her
about her friends in kindergarten, because, how can you explain
something like that to a 3 year old? I mean, what would you tell them? And she's been asking about it constantly,
no matter how many toys, how many activities they've arranged for
the kids here, to keep them occupied, to keep their mind away
from everything. She's still insisted on going home,
which is just another reminder
of how beautiful our house was. Our home was our community. Being such a tight knit community that
could make us feel at home so quickly. And now we're a community of refugees. I mean, we're all displaced
from our homes. Some people left their houses
with nothing but the clothes on their backs and no shoes. Nothing. [GESTURING]
Some people were injured gravely. Some children were orphaned. And we were all here in the same
situation, living essentially as refugees with nothing to call our own, apart
from a few donations that we were given. The kids are obviously very well cared
for, and they've been given every sort of donation that you could think of,
and we're very appreciated, appreciative of the Jewish community around the world
and the Israeli people for doing that, for making it all happen. But It's not the country who did that.
It's not the state of Israel. It's the people. It's the volunteers. It's the, it's our neighbors and our family
members who are giving what they can, despite not having many
things, I assume. And she wants to go home.
She wants to go back home. And I have no way of explaining
to her that it's not going to happen for a very long time,
probably because we have no assurance of safety.
INT: And if it's rebuilt. TEA: We don't know,
even if it's rebuilt. I mean, we could have
withstand missile attacks. Obviously, my neighbors
were all used to that. Was something they did
on a normal basis every now and then. But this was not the same situation. I mean, this was a peaceful,
agriculture based community. People were working
the fields and the orchards. We had cattle farm and chickens and, We just, it wasn't a military
installation. It wasn't, it wasn't a bunch of soldiers
sitting in a base somewhere being overrun by enemy combatants. That was a small community. 200 people looking to live their lives peacefully. And we were just slaughtered. My neighbors were just slaughtered. I mean, they went into homes
and killed without a second thought to who's against them? Didn't matter if it was somebody
that was a threat. [GESTURING] Young, old. They went into a house
of a 92 year old Holocaust survivor, Moshe Ridler, God rest his soul.
And they killed him and his Christian Moldovian
caretaker, Peter Bosco. Both. We don't know exactly how,
but they were found murdered in their house, in his home. They went into homes,
and whenever they could manage to lay their hands on somebody,
they just didn't have a second
thought of what's appropriate. I know what Islam dictates babies, adults, the elderly. I mean, they just killed everybody. I mean, they even went
into the workers housing and killed a couple of foreign workers
from Thailand. They didn't have any
care for anyone, just monstrosity. No idea as far as I know. Also, they've taken a family of Bedouins
who usually work the dairy farm on Saturday, father and his small children
who usually come with him on Saturday to help, and they were kidnapped to Gaza. INT: Because they...
TEA: I don't know why. INT: Saturday morning,
and they came to the TEA: Yeah, they went into the dairy farm
and they took them as far as we know, from security footage. So these are not people who have any substantial form of resistance. I mean, you don't if you are trying
to go up against an entity, you go up against soldiers,
you go up against military installations. There are at least,
we're naive enough to think that they're supposed to be some
kind of rules of engagement in war. But these are not people who care for any sort of morality or ethics. and, they just went in to kill
and pillage. We know now that there was two waves of intruders in the Kibbutz
and other Kibbutzim as well. People. First one was obviously Hamas terrorists
who went in and did whatever. The second one was Gaza people. People from, regular people from Gaza
who came in and pillaged and murdered and just did all that they wanted. Again, this is my own understanding of what I've understood
from the news and the situation. But we do know that they
were coming back and forth. We could hear them go away and come back
again to the Kibbutz, probably because they couldn't believe their luck, having
gone into a community, doing whatever they wanted and not having any response,
any forces coming up against them. Obviously our security group
tried their best. Our the head of the security group, Avi [?Korin?], God rest his soul, was, as far as I know, murdered that day as well. Reacting to their attempts to go into
the Kibbutz around my house, which I now know was,
that particular single shots I heard outside my window,
was his attempt to retaliate and keep them back. [PAUSES]
[BACKGROUND NOISE] I just. There's nothing else to add about it.
I mean. INT: Do you have any, I don't know,
pictures or messages or something that you wanted to share, to be of importance to you
specifically something that TEA: We took a few pictures
from inside the house. From inside the security room. From the safety room of my daughter.
We tried. We took them. We staged the pictures quietly so that we can send the pictures to
my mother and my mother-in-law to keep them relaxed,
because obviously they were watching the news, but no one actually understood
the scope of the danger we were in but us. They were listening to the news. They knew something was
happening around the South. They didn't know what's
happening exactly in Holit. Obviously, the situation was different
in every community experienced it differently. So we just staged a few pictures
and sent it to her, of her sleeping and of her watching the iPad. When we left, I have a picture,
a few pictures of us all sleeping on the floor
in the bomb shelter where we were evacuated after
leaving the Kibbutz around 8:00 p.m. After the soldiers cleared every
house, they were instructed to get us
out of there, obviously evacuate everybody,
and they attempted to do that one family at a time, because they could
only use an armored vehicle to do so. After a while, they were actually afraid
of us using our own vehicles because they feared they would be booby trapped. Like, I know, I know now that some vehicles or a house
in the Kibbutz was booby trapped in a way to harm first responders
or people coming to help. So they were initially very scared
to get us to use the cars. But after seeing that the evacuation
was taking very long because they could only take one family at a time, they had everybody try and take whatever they can. And if you have a running car,
just gather in a convoy at the entrance. And we were, which we did and I could smell the gunpowder
in the air. The smell was so vivid in my mind
still to this day. We could hear the gunfire
still going around us. There were a ton of soldiers.
It seemed like we were evacuating for them to take over and replace us. There were so many of them and I just had to think, where were they all day? I mean, obviously there were
some 30 other communities who were in similar situations, but. Still, it wasn't something
you could reconcile. Reconcile with yourself. When, once we left, I took a few pictures
of the gate of the Kibbutz. I didn't have the frame of mind
of actually documenting the situation. But when we left our own neighborhood,
we could obviously see most of the Kibbutz was engulfed in flames
and vehicles were on fire. I had my daughter cover her eyes
and so that she wouldn't watch anything. Obviously, she already understood
the gravity of the situation and she could tell something was happening around her. There was gunfire outside.
There was missile. The sound of bombing. At least I don't think it was missiles,
but probably grenades and other form of combatants reacting, I don't know. We left the Kibbutz,
we drove after the first car, and my husband took a wrong turn
and continued instead of turning towards the Kibbutz,
where we should have evacuated Kibbutz Gvulot, he kept
going straight on route 232, which is where we encountered
some very horrific sights. Up the road. We could see
there was an IDF armored vehicle burnt and
destroyed on the side of the road. Some soldiers were, I assume,
deceased on the side of the road still at that particular moment. Oh, and that's it. I mean, we turned back. We went to Kibbutz Gvulot, where we met all our friends and
neighbors and realized the... The scope of the loss,
the community experience that we have some 30 people who were murdered that day. At that point, we were not aware that two
of our neighbors were murdered as well. They were missing,
one of which was the security team, the head of the security team, Avi Cohen. And the other was Adi Kaplan. May she rest in peace, which the story is that she was in her safety room with her two children,
4 year old Negev and 4 month old,
6 month old Eshel. And she realized they were going
to get in, and I assume used her gun to retaliate. As far as I know,
she managed to kill one at least, and they took their revenge on her. And as far as I know, they booby
trapped her body inside the safety room. They took her kids
and later took her neighbor. Avital [UNCLEAR] and I don't
know if they intended on kidnapping them to Gaza, but
they walked them all the way to the fence and just let them go
while filming the whole situation. So it must have been a form of, their way of making some kind of a publicity stunt, showing they are humane
in some way, I guess, letting go of the two children. But that was not the case, obviously,
for many, many other children in other communities
and other homes on that day, I mean. [PAUSES]
[BACKGROUND NOISE] So she is an actual hero. [PAUSES 13 SECONDS]
[BACKGROUND NOISE] INT: Is she married? TEA: I think she has a partner,
the father of the children. And he wasn't in the Kibbutz that day. He was away with friends on Shabbat. And, he managed to reunite
with the kids that night. The kids were injured in a way. I remember the older child, Negev,
who is my daughter's friend, who's my daughter's age was injured, and the baby was also
scuffed and bruised. And it's just. We all gathered around the kids
until their father arrived and we everyone attempted to give whatever small, warmth we could give them until.
But you know what? They weren't the only kids who were
orphaned that day on the Kibbutz. And... [THINKING]
[BACKGROUND NOISE] That's it. I guess INT: Some kind of message
you would like people to hear. It doesn't have to be
necessarily specifically for now. Forever. Something over here is this interview. TEA: I'm very jaded for the past three weeks. No particular message, but I do know
that we're facing a monumental event as far as the international community goes. Obviously, there's a rise
in antisemitism for a while now, and it's just another excuse, the fact
that there's an operation in Gaza. It's for some reason people have
a very short memory, and we've already started hearing people denying this event,
just like they did 80 years ago. And since it's kind of ironic because
the terrorists themselves are admitting to everything and having taken footage of their own crimes, how could deny that? But it's just another form
of antisemitism, downplaying any instance that Jews are murdered around the world. But this was not a crime
just against Judaism. It was a crime against the West. Because, again, not all people
who were murdered or harmed that day in Israel were Jewish. Not all people. There wasn't any it wasn't an operation
against the Israeli. Israel as a state,
wasn't against soldiers. It wasn't against people
who posed any threats. I mean, people from Gaza
would use to come in to Israel daily and work in our communities. Some people had
very close connections with them. And just thinking about the fact
that this was the result, obviously they are also prisoners
in their own city because they're being held by their own government who doesn't
have any care for their safety. They just want to live up to their diabolical, I guess, goals. Murdering Jews, killing
the, destroying the state of Israel. It's in their charter. Hamas. But. These were not military installations.
These were peaceful communities. We had no form of retaliation.
We had no form of attack. We had no objectives. No, no offense, barely defense. We were just there to grow some potatoes
and raise our kids in peace. And you could think
that would have been enough, but. [SIGHING] What they did when they went in
was nothing short of the deplorable atrocities. Some people said that it was
even worse than the Nazis. I don't know about that,
but it wasn't a short of the Nazis. The stories,
the atrocities that they've committed, that they slaughtering women and children,
babies in their mother's womb. Kidnapping the elderly, I mean. We never imagined we would be in such a
situation where it's so obvious that the next time we're going to tell our kids
about the Holocaust, we would have such a short, such an event from recent memory that can actually be compared to it. We hope it wouldn't happen,
but obviously you guys are here, so. I just hope the Jewish people
around the world stay strong and withstand whatever form of
antisemitism thrown their way, because that's all we have for now to stay strong and with get through it, I
guess till people wake up and realize this is an attack on the West and any liberal way agenda is also being attacked by this, I mean, so there's no it boggles the mind
thinking that people are able to call themselves liberal and deny the gravity of
this situation, the gravity of that day, the atrocities committed and stand up with
the terrorists who did that, hiding behind the sign of the paragliders as a form of
of peaceful protest, I guess I don't know. [SHAKING HEAD] It's insane. Think about the fact
that it's comparable to having war. If they would have put up the gates of Auschwitz as a logo and call and call themselves social justice warriors, and it's the same. I mean, people from Gaza
are not known for their sports like abilities with paragliders. So the only way for this to be a rumor, a rumor of Hamas,
is the fact that they use them to infiltrate peaceful communities On October 7th, 2023 and murder babies
and mothers and the elderly. That's the only thing
that can be tied to that picture of. And if people are calling themselves peace, social justice warriors and associate themselves with such a sign, then they're either misguided or they're
lying to themselves or or other people. That's it.
INT: Thank you. TEA: Took a long time.
INT: No, you were great. TEA: Thank you. Sorry. I can sometimes run my mouth.
INT: No. CREW: [INAUDIBLE]
[HEBREW]
