“God Forbid.”
On the morning of Saturday, October 7, shortly after sunrise, a message rings on 200 phones in the WhatsApp group for Be’eri mothers.
We have a terrorist on the stairs, says another message that arrives shortly after that. Call a person.
Certain facts in this article may distress some readers.
The women used the chat for the next 20 hours to express their terror, astonishment, and comfort as militants roamed the neighborhood killing people and torching homes. Hamas gunmen had just started a day-long rampage through this kibbutz in southern Israel.
These ladies, some of whom were gathered with their families, recalled the shouting and explosions they heard outside, shared information about the location of the gunmen, exchanged advice on how to deal with the smoke that was filling their rooms, and continuously asked for aid while they were in their safe rooms. Sometimes, such support never materialized.
They posed inquiries as the hours passed. The army wasn’t there. Why did assistance take so long? Please have someone seek for my mother. How can I secure my safe space? Should we let the individual who claims to be a soldier in?
The group’s name was eventually changed to “Be’eri Mothers Emergency” by someone.
A woman who was chosen by the community to speak to the media in the wake of the attacks shared this group chat with the BBC. She is one of the mothers in the chat, and she gave us the information so we could understand how the day’s tragedy played out and what a lifeline these women were in the most desperate and occasionally fatal hours of their lives.
Although we were unable to obtain the consent of all 200 members, three of them volunteered to give us detailed accounts of their experiences. We have anonymized all other interactions while taking care to ensure that no one can be recognized in order to respect their privacy.
Some of the members are missing, assumed dead, or unaccounted for. About 100 individuals were killed, and many more were taken prisoner, according to survivors.
This discussion reveals minute-by-minute in previously unseen detail how Hamas repeatedly returned to kill, burn, and stalk people in their own homes. It provides insight into how southern Israel experienced the border crossing and community destruction carried out by Hamas fighters.
It demonstrates how locals got by and helped one another, but it also chronicles, hour by hour, how desperate they became as it became evident that they would not be saved by the Israeli state any time soon.
39-year-old Dafna Gerster, who was in town from Germany, had spent Friday night with relatives in the kibbutz where she was raised. She and her husband slept the night at her brother’s apartment nearby knowing that the following day was Saturday, the Jewish day of rest, and that the families could join together once more. They had met at her father’s house to play the board game Camel Up into the night.
The neighborhood is close to the Gaza border and is accustomed to missiles, but when Dafna woke up at 6:30 to the sound of rockets, she quickly realized something was up.
“Normally, the Iron Dome’s [Israel’s missile defense system] boom and an alarm go out. There was no alarm this time, and it was really loud. We were unable to place the noise.
“I went to my brother’s room and asked him ‘what is this?'”
They hurried to the safe room, or mamad, which was built of reinforced concrete and equipped with airtight steel doors and windows to withstand rocket strikes.
But it soon became apparent that other dangers existed in addition to missiles. The WhatsApp group was alerted to the shooting and the presence of armed men in the streets.
A small group of Hamas fighters can be seen on CCTV footage that the BBC has verified arriving at the kibbutz gate before to 06:00. The gate opens as a car approaches, and the militants rush inside after killing the passengers. The same two Hamas terrorists can be seen in video taken a short while later going across a square with their weapons at their sides.
Time travel to 7:10, when the group’s first WhatsApp message is shared. Three motorbikes carrying two highly armed Hamas militants are seen exiting the neighborhood through the same gate in the video.
The militants are seen in the kibbutz at 09:05, three hours after first entering, in further footage that is too gruesome to present here. There is at least one person hauled out and lying in the road next to the same car that was shot at in the first film.
A growing sense of dread on the conversation preceded a horrifying realization: many people were having trouble locking their safe room doors as the kibbutz community locked itself into its own mamads.
How should I perform an emergency lock? One person questioned, “And how can we know that it’s indeed locked?
Another person requested, “Can you lock the safe room?”
“To missiles yes, not to terrorists.”
Images posted to the WhatsApp group included instructions on how to lock the doors. People who couldn’t scared that Hamas would simply enter.
At Michal Pinyan’s 44-year-old home, her husband had rushed from the safe room to lock the front door. The family outside heard Arabic screaming, then gunfire.
Michal’s husband hastily returned to the safe room where he constructed a locking mechanism using ropes and a baseball bat, which he held for the nearly 19 hours they were there.
They typed rapidly in the frightened calm of these protected rooms, where no one dared shout. Michal viewed the incoming mails.
Except for faint sounds transmitted through the thick walls, they were unable to hear what was happening outside. However, they all made an effort to decipher what was happening based on what little they could make out.
They communicated with one another about “frantic knocking” as armed guys went from house to house.
One said, “It’s not knocking; it’s gunfire.”
People might report hearing gunfire in their neighborhood or outside a specific house during the first hour of the attack, they would tell the gathering. As was to be expected, the responses began to stream in: “So do we.”
“We understood it wasn’t just one terrorist, it was a massive attack,” Michal elaborates. “In each neighbourhood of the kibbutz we heard ‘they’re here, they’re here’ so they were in each neighbourhood at the same time.”
As the scope of the assault became more apparent, angry and terrified remarks questioning when the army would arrive and why it wasn’t already there swamped the chat.
“You can hear gunfire nearby. One woman remarked, “Hoping it’s the first response squad firing,” alluding to a tiny unit in the kibbutz that responds to intruder warnings before turning the situation over to the military.
Eitan Hadad, Dafna’s brother, was a member of that team and he hurried to assist, leaving the couple in the safe room.
She would not see him again after that.
“He went out and we stayed in the safe room and it was just horror,” she recounts.
The roughly 10-person response force was obviously no match for the Hamas fighters.
People reported more and more gunshots on WhatsApp, as well as males speaking Arabic outside. The cries for assistance become more frequent.
One resident said, “I’m home alone and I’m really scared.”
Shir Gutentag, who was in another part of the kibbutz, was watching the WhatsApp exchange in shock while trying to hushedly reassure her daughters, who were five and eight years old.
“I initially shook when I realized there are terrorists on the kibbutz. I was stunned. However, I instantly told myself, “You have to remain calm,” as her children were looking at me and beginning to become frightened as a result of my reactions.
“Therefore, I assured them that everything would be fine. Everything will be OK.
Since the attack began, hours had passed, and the situation was only getting worse. Members of the conversation appealed for assistance as Hamas threatened safe rooms and broke into people’s houses.