Echoes of the Hamas attack took a few hours to reach Migdal Oz. This Israeli religious colony located in the West Bank, territory occupied by Israel since 1967 in contradiction with international law, nestles in the hollow of a plateau between Hebron and Jerusalem. When the first alert sounded on October 7, it was decided to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah on the football field, near the shelters, so that the one hundred and fifty faithful could take cover.
The “kitat konenout”, citizen militia responsible for protecting the locality, received a first briefing at 8 a.m. Then immediate mobilization orders were given to fathers and husbands. They quietly left the ceremony with their families, as the sirens continued to sound. “It’s sad to say, but we’re used to rockets”confides Benjy Myers, 45, one of the rabbis of Migdal Oz, head of the colony’s civil intervention team. “And the news fell on us”, continues Mr. Myers. Residents of Migdal Oz have relatives residing in religious kibbutzim in the Gaza envelope, affected by the Hamas attack. Astonishment gave way to fear.
“It wasn’t the terrorism we knew. There were knife attacks, or even bulldozers, rockets… But here, this massacre happened in Israel, and with a level of barbarity that we have never seen”, worries the rabbi, who has chosen to settle in the occupied West Bank. It was necessary to reorganize the defense in a disaster. Out of seventy families, twenty-five saw some of their members – fathers, husbands, brothers – mobilized. In this colony, the doors are always open, the windows are neither armored nor equipped with bars. The day after the attack, around 9 p.m., a different alarm sounded: “Not rockets. But that of terrorist infiltration », said Mr. Myers. An individual attempted to cross the barrier south of the settlement, where less than a kilometer away is Beit Fajjar, a Palestinian village. He managed to escape.
“Since then, we have mobilized. And now we take Hamas seriously”, adds Sara Bitane Brownstein, another resident, aged 63. The members of the kitat konenout have been replaced. They received additional training to learn how to use a weapon. A unit of Israeli soldiers was deployed. Teams are patrolling night and day, and firing positions have been set up. Mr. Myers himself was equipped with an assault rifle, which seems very cumbersome to him. But the fear remains. Palestinian workers can only return to the kibbutz escorted by a member of the security forces.
You have 70% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.