‘Something like this has never happened before’ Meduza readers in Israel share their experiences of the October 7 Hamas attack

On the morning of October 7, Hamas launched a military operation against Israel, firing thousands of missiles from the Gaza Strip. Militants broke through the Gaza border fence and infiltrated nearby settlements in southern Israel. Hundreds of people were killed in the attack, thousands were injured, and an unknown number of hostages have been taken. Meduza asked its readers in Israel to share what this day was like in their cities. Here are some of their stories.

Southern Israel

Ofakim

Svetlana

Sirens since 6 a.m., terrorists in the city, hostages being taken. We’re sitting at home by order of the Home Front Command; going out is forbidden. We constantly hear explosions and gunfire in the street. It’s frightening.

Sderot

Tonya

I woke up to sirens at six in the morning. At first, I thought it would be the usual — a couple of explosions — and I could go to the center to wait it out. But after a while, shots started ringing out in the city, and my friend called me and said that Hamas had entered Sderot.

My acquaintances and I locked ourselves in one apartment. From the window, we saw militants shooting at a civilian car. There were eight of them. They were in a jeep and had white bands on their heads.

Now we’re locked up in our homes. There’s no way to leave the city. We can hear big explosions.

Nika

My sister is in Sderot right now; she and her husband were at a party in the desert. It was quiet during the night, but in the morning they started shooting at them from cars, coming from different directions. My sister and her husband fled, ran to a parking lot and started to drive away. They couldn’t get far, so they hid in a stretch of forest. Eventually, the military helped them get out. Now, my sister and her husband have driven back to Sderot at their own risk to pick up their son. They’ve decided to wait everything out in a bomb shelter. On the way back to Sderot, they saw many bodies lying in the street. My sister and her husband are very scared.

Ashkelon

Denis

We live in Ashkelon — it’s the closest major city to Gaza. Today, at half past seven in the morning, we woke up to air-raid sirens. At first, we thought it was just a normal escalation [because of] the holiday, and even joked that it was a bit late this year (usually they launch missiles every summer). Then, we started reading the news and realized that this time it was much more serious.

We’re already used to missiles; they fall regularly. Every new house has a special fortified room, and there’s also the Iron Dome. All this has turned missile attacks into a routine. You realize that missile attacks on cities are terrible, but it’s perceived almost as the norm. This time, it’s not like that. The border has been breached; militants with machine guns and grenade launchers are driving around the nearby settlements; there are lots of dead and hostages. Our city is pretty far from the border, so it hasn’t come here yet, but it feels like even leaving the house isn’t necessarily safe. There are stories on the news about people who’ve locked themselves in their homes, and the militants are knocking on their windows and doors. It’s very scary.

Despite being close to Gaza, the feeling of security in my country had been strong. Now, I feel trapped in my own apartment. And the missile strikes are so massive that the air defense can’t cope. Projectiles are falling on houses and cars, and you can see smoke rising from the places where they hit.

All in all, it’s very scary. And it’s also hard that you have to hide it from your children, parents, and friends.

Ella

We’ve lived in Ashkelon for many years, nine kilometers (just over five miles) from the Gaza Strip. But something like this has never happened before. We were woken at 6:30 a.m. by a siren. Fortunately, our apartment, unlike many thousands of other homes in the city, has a secure room — a room with thicker walls and a metal plate that slides out of the wall and closes the window. Our children know what to do when there’s shelling, and they can tell the difference between the sound of the Iron Dome and a rocket coming from Gaza.

For the first 4–5 hours, the sirens went off constantly, one after another, a couple of times an hour. There’s incessant rumbling, even when there are no sirens. If I managed to run out to the bathroom during a break and looked out the window, every time there were many new black smoke columns in different parts of the city.

One of our acquaintances had half their apartment destroyed, another one lost their hair salon, and others got out with just broken glass and a fright when a missile hit a parking lot and destroyed a bunch of cars there. And those are just my acquaintances. There’s a lot of destruction, there are dead and wounded. There are many people in hospitals who need help. But it wasn’t just the missiles this time. The worst thing is that militants have infiltrated our border villages and towns, captured and killed soldiers and civilians. That militants were driving on our streets and shooting people with automatic weapons?! How did this happen?! How did we let this happen?!

Chaos and mayhem. We’re hoping for the best.

Dartya

From 6:30 a.m., the city was under shelling. It was intense. It was impossible to get out of the safe room for even a minute to wash up. Police and assault teams immediately started patrolling the southern neighborhood [of the city]. There were various rumors — for example, that Hamas had snuck into Ashkelon, too. But those were only rumors.

They fired heavily into the center of the city; there were direct hits. Somewhere between 12:00 and 3:00 p.m., the blasts were less frequent. But you can still hear the siren and the accompanying explosions. We are very worried about the hostages and people from the towns south. My husband, who’s lived in Israel since 1996, says that this has never happened. He says they fired [at us], but to break into Israel, to drive through the cities, to take hostages, to fire on houses — this has never happened. They’ve started calling up husbands of people I know to the army as reservists.

Ivan

I’ve been living here for five years, and every year or two there is an escalation, which is accompanied by missile attacks of varying intensity on Israeli territory.

It’s ordinary for people who live in the south. I think most of them would agree that shelling has become routine. Yes, it’s unpleasant, but we’re protected by the Iron Dome, and the chance of a hit even with intense shelling is very small. And if you follow all the Home Front Command’s recommendations and hide in a bomb shelter, the risk of getting hit is minimal, almost zero.

But this time, there was an incursion of terrorists into residential areas in Israel — the police said about 200–300 militants. They’re already officially talking about 100 dead and 1000 wounded, and it’s already obvious that there will be more. To explain the full horror of what’s happening: imagine a mass shooting happened, only in dozens of cities and towns at once, and the killers were trained and coordinated.

It’s absolutely shocking and it separates the feeling of security into before and after. Honestly, I was sure that the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip was one of the most secure in the world and that this kind of invasion was essentially impossible.

How could such a thing even be allowed to happen? There are many questions that Israelis will be asking this government, which has been so busy pushing reform against the [Israeli] Supreme Court and attacking Israel’s democracy. And, hopefully, we’ll get answers, but only after order is restored and the Hamas terrorist group that claimed responsibility is finally destroyed (Hamas is not recognized as a terrorist organization in Russia, by the way).

This day changed everything. Eternal memory to those who died.

Central Israel

Jerusalem

Nastya

Israel and my Israeli husband have taught me to celebrate life even more when there’s war. The first thing we did was hang a picture in the hallway where we’re waiting out the bombings with our two children. Then, the kids and I baked cookies and turned on a Paddington movie. Then, I opened up the best chat group in the world, a group with the teens I work with. There are 500 teens there all day, supporting each other, sending video messages, sending pictures from shelters, joking, asking if they can donate blood at 15, and writing about how they are doing. They write about how beautiful the sunset is today, despite the war. And they call for those in the south to come north.

I don’t know what I would do without this chat group of young people who just recently came here themselves because of the war. Too bad the world isn’t run by these kids, but mostly by some not-so-smart and not-so-kind adults.

Boris

I live in Jerusalem, in the Musrara neighborhood, on the border with the West Bank. This morning, you could hear several bangs of missiles from the Gaza Strip exploding. One of the rockets fell near my acquaintance’s house in Har Adar. He wasn’t hurt. It’s now very quiet on the street, there are almost no people walking by, everyone is sitting at home. Classes have been canceled for tomorrow. My friend’s mom lives in one of the kibbutzim [in the south of the country] that was attacked. We haven’t talked in depth yet, but she’s safe. Among my friends and acquaintances, Israeli and Palestinian, there is a sense of bitter frustration at what is happening, no understanding of the need for this violence. I, personally, don’t feel in great danger, although I’m certainly anxious.

Viktor

We live in the south of Jerusalem. We woke up to a siren and the sound of explosions in the air. The siren kept going off during the morning — before that, in the year we’ve lived here, it only went off once, in May.

We have an old building, there’s no bomb shelter in the apartment, so we went out on the stairs. The anxiety is still there, although no more rockets are flying in our direction.

We have three small children. Our six-year-old son asked me a lot about how strong the Israeli army is and what I would do if I was captured. Generally, he was really worried. Then, the kids asked when there would be more sirens.

Overall, it’s calmer now, but the night is still ahead.

Tel Aviv

Yelena

We live in the center of Tel Aviv and were woken up by sirens around 7:30 in the morning. If a siren goes off in your neighborhood, it means you have a minute-and-a-half to get to a bomb shelter. In most homes, it’s either directly in the apartment (as a separate equipped room) or in the stairwell (also as a comfortable, enclosed room). For our Israeli neighbors who’ve gotten used to such warnings of imminent shelling over the years, today came as a shock. Never before had Israel let such a group of terrorists get into its territory. Plus, there was a declaration of war, tens of thousands of reservists were drafted.

Sirens in Tel Aviv sounded twice — the last time around 11:00 in the morning. Twice, people took cover. There’s no one on the street; we have a great view of the entire city and the waterfront from the 20th floor. There are hardly any cars either. The beaches are closed, no one is out at sea, everything is quiet in the sea. It’s almost 7:00 p.m. — people are trying to stay home. It seems, they’re monitoring the situation on TV. Everyone realizes that people in the south are still in danger and expects there’ll be some serious operation after the border zones are liberated.

I think the government is very determined. They have to act — otherwise, they won’t be forgiven for this intelligence and border guard failure. The thing that’s so valuable — all my Israeli friends and colleagues are calling and worrying, asking if you know what’s going on and what to do. Many people stand in line to donate blood. People care. They want, with all their hearts, a normal life for themselves and their families.

Dima

One look at the city, and you’d think the COVID-19 lockdown had returned. Even though it’s the weekend, few people go out, all the stores and restaurants are closed, and you can’t help but get the feeling that it’s not safe outside. Police are tensely standing on duty everywhere, and helicopters are constantly in the sky. I talked to Israelis, and, at first, they were in a real panic. It all started on a weekend morning, on the Sabbath, and on a holiday — they said they weren’t prepared for this. And these are local Israelis who’ve seen a lot of things here, which you can’t say about the newcomers.

Georgy

I woke up this morning to an air raid siren. Then, there was a powerful explosion. Later, it turned out that on a neighboring street, a rocket had hit a high-rise building and blown up an entire apartment.

Usually on Shabbat there already aren’t many people on the street, but today, the city was almost completely empty. There are many security vehicles on the streets. In the empty streets, people in military uniforms with backpacks stand out. They’re all reservists, leaving their normal lives for an unknown period of time and going off to serve.

Only grandfathers and grandmothers are always in their places, in the squares, calmly talking about the beginning of a new war, as if they’re used to it.

Northern Israel

Haifa

Sergey

The only signs in Haifa of today’s tragedy are deserted streets and intermittent fighter jets overhead. People are afraid to leave their homes; they update news reports every minute. Haifa is the safest major city in Israel today — and for the past 10 years. There are no sirens or murders, but the pain and tragedy are shared equally across the country. Israelis from the north have a rule sewn into their skin: invite acquaintances and friends from the center and south of the country to live with them during the war. This is what I and my neighborhood have been doing since morning. Unfortunately, few agree. They believe that they will be spared.

Aisha

I moved back a week ago. Yesterday was peace, we walked along the embankment. In the morning, I found out what was happening and ran to the blood donation point, stood in a huge line. There are reports of possible attacks on the northern border. I’ve put a go bag together. There’s no fear. There’s hatred and a huge desire for revenge. My son is a soldier.

Elyagv

It’s a normal Shabbat in Haifa. People are walking around, some shops are open, buses are running. I learned about the war from Russian friends who woke me up at seven in the morning, asking, “What's going on?” Sometimes, though, you can hear airplanes flying south from Ramat David.

Antonina

It’s a quiet place, but the streets are unusually quiet and there are very few people — usually at this time, the parks and cafes are full of families with children. Now, everyone is sitting at home, you can feel the tension in the air. There is a lot of information in city chat groups about residents going to donate blood en masse. School and college classes have been canceled tomorrow nationwide.

The Home Front Command issued an order to prepare bomb shelters in apartments and all necessities. We’ve also prepared — we’ve gathered food, medicines and documents, and we’ve closed the iron shutters on the windows in case the siren goes off.

Haifa is considered a city with a large Arab population. There are entire Arab neighborhoods here, and there’s a fear that riots could break out. That’s why police patrols in the city have been stepped up. We wait, we hope, we believe that everything will work out.