Occasionally, rockets were fired from northern Gaza. This was a true exchange of fire.
During one live report on Mornings with Maria, I held the mic in one hand and my ear with the other. Back in May I’d been standing too close to an Iron Dome battery when it launched an interceptor. That, along with not using enough ear protection during the Tulkarem raid in September, had damaged the hearing in my right ear. I’d been to the doctor in Jerusalem and was told it could be temporary.
Now I reported: “The military is telling us today that more than three thousand targets have been hit since Saturday morning. I’m going to step out of the way here and just show you what it looks like as this shelling is taking place.” We panned to soldiers in the distance, marching in a straight line, training for their mission ahead. The chyron read, “Israel Prepares for Ground Invasion of Gaza.”
“Fields have been turned into bases, dirt roads have been turned into arteries for the army to deliver supplies and to deliver weapons to their fighters because it is not a question of if Israel will go into Gaza, but rather a question of when,” I reported.
Before our hits for Fox & Friends, we ran into Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht, the international spokesman for the military, and his team on the side of the road. Hecht and I had a good relationship, and I figured this could be a good chance to interview him live.
“Where do things stand now in terms of preparation? It appears the Israelis are staging to enter Gaza.”
“So before talking about Gaza,” Richard replied, “again I’m here, you’re here, to see what happened here. We’re around and with the communities. Yesterday I entered Kfar Aza with journalists to show the world what happened there and it was an ISIS, even worse than ISIS carnage. Bodies, decapitated people. Horrific.
“And we are now preparing ourselves,” he said. “We’re now striking Gaza also from the air and all future options are on the table. We are focusing mainly on compounds in Gaza and it’s a very, very severe strike right now in order to take out their capabilities.”
The crack of outgoing artillery.
“In Kfar Aza,” I said, “we understand there were mutilated bodies. Decapitated women and children. Is that accurate?” I had seen the reports but was skeptical—I needed to continue investigating the claims. “Yes. We spoke to soldiers. It wasn’t me speaking as a spokesperson.
We went in there, there were Israeli reserve paratroopers. And they told the stories. They told the stories. And again, I’m still recovering from that day. I even get emotional thinking about it.”
After the interview I talked with Keren Hajioff, a longtime contact, friend of my friend Ariel, who was now in reserve duty. Keren is the former spokesperson for Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. “You’re coming, right?” she said.
She was talking about Kibbutz Be’eri.
Established in 1946 in the northwest of the Negev Desert, Be’eri was known for its art gallery. And the small farming community of just over 1,000 people looked like a painting itself. Rolling hills lead to luscious fields. A small printing factory employed many of its residents, and like many kibbutzim along the Gaza border the community had good relationships with Palestinians and was home to many peace activists. Its proximity to Gaza, only three miles from the border, nevertheless left it vulnerable to frequent mortar and rocket attacks.
Families in Be’eri knew the drill. Mortars or rockets came a few times a year. If there were sirens, you entered your bomb shelter, known in Israel as a mamad, and waited for the all-clear. By 2023, the red-alert sirens iPhone app, serving as yet another warning of incoming fire, was as common as the calculator app. The attacks were never much of a problem.
On the night of October 6, residents had gathered in the dining hall to celebrate seventy-seven years since the founding of the kibbutz. It was Shabbat, so the wine flowed, as neighbors gathered for a small party. It was also the last day of the weeklong Sukkot holiday. The crisp October evening turned into a chilly night. As in most communities in the Negev Desert, the lack of light pollution allowed residents a clear glimpse of the stars on their walk home. It was quiet. It was peaceful.
Early Saturday morning, everything changed.
Loud blasts pierced the air of Kibbutz Be’eri as Qassam rockets were intercepted overhead in that initial 6:29 a.m. barrage. The blare of rocket sirens echoed through the streets. “Zeva Adom, Zeva Adom”: Red Alert. That was an alarm clock for Be’eri residents. They woke up and hurried into their safe rooms.
Meanwhile, in flight from the Nova Music Festival, Yasmin and Tal had seen the militants at the bomb shelter, fled, run into a traffic jam, and pulled a U-turn; now they were arriving at Be’eri. The community was known to Yasmin as one of the richer kibbutzim in Israel, a protected and safe place. With rockets flying, they drove up to the yellow sliding gate behind another car, which opened the gate.
A few hundred feet inside, they encountered the Be’eri security team, in the process of responding to the rocket alarm. “Hello, we are from the party,” Yasmin told them. “There was a terrorist at the migunit [outdoor bomb shelter]. Please help us!”
They were told to get out of the car and get into one of the Be’eri miguniot.
They did, but back at the entrance to the kibbutz, what would become an hours-long nightmare for Be’eri—and for Yasmin and Tal—was now underway.
CCTV video shows the beginning of the attack on the kibbutz:
At 6:55 a.m., two Hamas fighters approach the yellow sliding gate at the entrance of Be’eri, Kalashnikovs in hand.