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‘I decided to play dead … My son is still missing’: A survivor’s account from Kibbutz Nir Oz
Neomit Dekel-Chen, 63, has been a resident of Kibbutz Nir Oz for the last 30 years. This is her account of what happened on Oct. 7, when Hamas attacked her kibbutz and others near the border of Gaza. Dozens of Nir Oz residents were murdered and dozens more were taken hostage during the assault.
This account is adapted from Dekel-Chen’s account to Ynet, an Israeli Hebrew-language news site.
(JTA) — After a half hour of nonstop red-alert sirens and incoming missiles, we started receiving messages that Hamas terrorists were everywhere in the kibbutz. My son, Sagi, who is still missing, wrote to me that there were two terrorists walking around near the clinic. Afterwards he sent me another message about two more terrorists on a motorbike.
Sagi told me to lock my door, which I did, and I went into the security room alone. I heard all around people speaking Arabic; they had entered my house, they were breaking everything. I crept into a bed-linen chest. My daughter-in-law wrote to me that there were terrorists in her house; I wrote back that they were in my house, too. We understood then from others that they were starting to set the houses on fire, and that we should put wet towels at the threshold of the security room door.
Once I heard them leave my house, I got out of the linen chest to quickly get a bottle of water and returned to the security room. I locked myself in. But more and more smoke was seeping in. I opened the window of the room, but the pergola was on fire. I closed the window – then the whole room started filling up. I ran out and saw a neighbor who had shot two terrorists.
I thought this was my chance to escape, but I was wrong. They captured me.
They caught my neighbor too. I was barefoot and they held me tight so I wouldn’t flee. I don’t understand a word of Arabic but I understood they were telling me not to try and run away. They led me barefoot in the direction of the fields, to the back gate of the kibbutz, toward Gaza. Along the way I saw houses in flames, and I understood no one was going to get out of those burning houses alive. I had left my house to save myself.
We walked for about 150 meters on the road toward Gaza. I saw the terrorists walking with their loot, bulging suitcases, televisions, electric wagons used by elders. They had taken everything. I was with a neighbor who told me they had killed her son and taken her husband. I told her we would stay together and see what to do next. About 150 meters later, a tuktuk vehicle pulling an open cart stopped beside us. In the cart there were five people, all from the kibbutz. My good friend was there with three little girls, two of them only 3 years old; they were crying, looking lost.
They continued to drive with us in the back, toward Gaza, when an IDF helicopter appeared above us. At some point the helicopter shot at the terrorists, the driver and the others. There was screaming in the tuktuk.
All the terrorists were dead and we were alive, except for one for one of the women with us. She had died in the arms of her daughter, who had come to the kibbutz to visit and now would not leave her mother. I took one of the little girls in my arms, another friend took a second little girl and we started running towards the fields. There was a young couple with us with twin girls, but only one of them was in the cart. They, too, started running with us. We called out to the woman whose mother had been shot that she should flee with us, because her mother was dead. She kept weeping: “Mama died in my arms, and I didn’t protect the girls.”
Staff at the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheva tend to patients wounded in the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas in southern Israel, Oct. 9, 2023. (American Friends of Soroka Medical Center)
We were 50 meters into the fields when I was hit with shrapnel in my head, knee and back. I was bleeding. I lay down on the ground and a tractor showed up. It was my tractor, the one I work with. There were terrorists on it. They saw us and started coming toward us to put us on the tractor and take us with them. I said to myself that it was now or never; I decided to play dead — and they didn’t take me. They ignored me. They took the three little girls, the parents of the twin girl, everyone who was there and still alive. They took them all to Gaza.
More terrorists in more cars drove by, loaded with the things they had looted. The IDF helicopter was overhead. I tried to signal to them that I was alive; I tried to move forward. Every time more terrorists drove by, I played dead again, which I could do as I was covered in blood. At noon it was hot and I drank water from the field irrigation pipes. I continued toward a row of tamarisk trees. I know all the roads in the fields. I lifted up my head and saw the kibbutzim in flames — Magen, Nir Oz and Nirim. They were all burning.
Even though I didn’t know if there was anywhere to return to, I kept telling myself I had to reach my children and see what had happened to them. I have two children and four grandchildren. That is what kept me going.
I crept for two hours through the fields and I finally managed to reach my kibbutz. I searched for a place that wasn’t on fire. I couldn’t feel my legs anymore. On the way I saw ruin everywhere, massive destruction.
There are no words to describe the pogrom. Everything was burnt, broken; there were no houses left. The wooden houses had been consumed by flames and only the metal security rooms were still standing. Terrible sights. I reached my daughter’s house which wasn’t burned. I pounded on the door but they wouldn’t open it. I shouted: “Ofir, it’s Ima,” and still they didn’t open because they thought it was terrorists.
Finally, they opened the door and I fell onto the mattress in the room. I was bleeding everywhere. And from that moment I’m just waiting to hear something about my son who is still missing.
I told them to let everyone know I was alive. Later, rescue forces arrived and tended to me and evacuated me to Soroka Hospital in Beersheba. It took them hours to arrive. When I got back to the kibbutz at 1:30, the army had still not arrived; everything had started at 6:30, and seven hours later, still no soldiers had shown up. I walked to my house terrified terrorists would shoot me in the back. I was determined to find my children.
It was my war of survival, to reach my children and grandchildren. The kibbutz is completely destroyed. There is nowhere to return to, no starting point for rebuilding. I can’t stop wondering how we reached this situation. How?
My heart is with those who stayed on the tractor. But I had to save myself and reach my children.
—
The post ‘I decided to play dead … My son is still missing’: A survivor’s account from Kibbutz Nir Oz appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Occidental College Settles Antisemitism Complaint
A general view of the US Department of Education in Washington, DC, on Dec. 1, 2020. Photo: Graeme Sloan via Reuters Connect
Occidental College in Los Angeles has agreed to “sweeping reforms” of its handling of antisemitism to settle a civil rights complaint brought by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law.
According to the ADL, which issued an announcement of the agreement on Tuesday, the college will refer to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism during its investigations of antisemitic conduct and add a section on antisemitism to its educational programming on Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prevents education institutions receiving federal funds from practicing or allowing the practice of discrimination based on race, religion, and ethnic origin.
The ADL and the Brandeis Center jointly filed their complaint against Occidental College, a measure which allows for negotiating a resolution to the matter before the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) renders a ruling. The civil rights organizations charged in their claim that the college failed to correct a “pervasive and hostile environment” in which Jewish students were subject to “severe antisemitic bullying, intimidation, and physical threats” amid an explosion of anti-Jewish hatred precipitated by Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7.
“This agreement demonstrates Occidental College’s commitment to counter all forms of contemporary antisemitism and underscores their recognition that effectively combating antisemitism requires understanding the relationship between Jewish identity, Israel, and Zionism,” Brandeis Center president Alyza Lewin said in a statement. “We are gratified by the school’s engagement in meaningful discussions at the highest levels of the administration, and we are heartened that Occidental has committed to creating a safer environment for Jewish students. When implemented, this agreement will help ensure that Jewish students are able to learn and thrive in an environment free from antisemitic hate, discrimination, and harassment.”
ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt added, “This outcome demonstrates how the Title VI OCR process can work to effectively protect Jewish students. We are deeply grateful for the US Department of Education’s dedication and assistance in resolving this case. It is our hope that this resolution will lead to other college administrators implementing these or similar measures proactively to address antisemitism on campus.”
Occidental College’s settlement treads a path taken by other institutions of higher education against which legal action was taken to address a surge of campus antisemitism over the past year, amid the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
In June, Columbia University settled a civil lawsuit in which it was accused by a student of neglecting its obligation to foster a safe learning environment amid riotous pro-Hamas protests that were held at the school throughout the final weeks of the academic year.
The resolution of the case, first reported by Reuters, called for Columbia to hire a “Safe Passage Liaison” who will monitor protests and “walking escorts” who will accompany students whose safety is threatened around the campus. Other details of the settlement included “accommodations” for students whose academic lives are disrupted by protests and new security policies for controlling access to school property.
In July, New York University agreed to pay an undisclosed sum of money to settle a lawsuit brought by three students who sued the school for responding, allegedly, to antisemitic discrimination “with deliberate indifference.”
By resolving the case, NYU avoided a lengthy trial which would have revealed precisely who and which office received but failed to address numerous reports that — according to the court documents filed in November — NYU students and faculty “repeatedly abuse, malign, vilify, and threaten Jewish students with impunity” and that “death to k—es” and “gas the Jews” were chanted by pro-Hamas supporters at the school.
NYU did not merely pay money to quell the complaints of its accusers, however. Over a month after the settlement was reached it updated its Non-Discrimination and Harassment Policy (NDAH), including in it language which identified “Zionist” as a racial dog whistle that sometimes conceals the antisemitic intent of speech and other conduct that denigrates and excludes Jews. As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the policy acknowledges the “coded” subtleties of antisemitic speech and its use in discriminatory conduct that targets Jewish students and faculty.
NYU went further, recognizing that Zionism is central to the identities of the world’s 15.7 million Jews, an overwhelming majority of whom believe the Jewish people were destined to return to their ancient homeland in the land of Israel after centuries of exile. “For many Jewish people, Zionism is a part of their Jewish identity. Speech and conduct that would violate the NDAH if targeting Jewish or Israeli people can also violate the NDAH if directed toward Zionists,” the university said.
Anti-Israel activity on college campuses has reached crisis levels in the year that followed Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, according to a report published by the ADL in September which revealed a “staggering” 477 percent increase in anti-Zionist activity involving assault, vandalism, and other phenomena. Titled “Anti-Israel Activism on US Campuses, 2023-2024,” the document painted a bleak picture of an American higher education system poisoned by political extremism and hate.
“The antisemitic, anti-Zionist vitriol we’ve witnessed on campus is unlike anything we’ve seen in the past,” Greenblatt said in a statement accompanying the unveiling of the organization’s research. “Since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel, the anti-Israel movement’s relentless harassment, vandalism, intimidation, and violent physical assaults go way beyond the peaceful voicing of a political opinion. Administrators and faculty need to do much better this year to ensure a safe and truly inclusive environment for all students, regardless of religion, nationality, or political views, and they need to start now.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Occidental College Settles Antisemitism Complaint first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Rashida Tlaib Uses Thanksgiving Message to Express Solidarity With ‘Palestine,’ Other ‘Indigenous People’
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) addresses attendees as she takes part in a protest calling for a ceasefire in Gaza outside the US Capitol, in Washington, DC, US, Oct. 18, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) used the holiday of Thanksgiving to “mourn” the “indigenous people” of “Palestine” and elsewhere “fighting for freedom on their own land,” portraying one of America’s most storied celebrations in a negative light.
“This Thanksgiving we mourn the Indigenous people killed by European settlers and the United States in order to steal their land,” Tlaib reposted on Instagram. “From here to Palestine, we stand in solidarity with all Indigenous people as they fight for freedom on their own land.”
Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman elected to the US Congress, has long been an outspoken critic of Israel. The congresswoman was slow to issue a public statement acknowledging the Palestinian terror group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, and since the onslaught, she has repeatedly accused Israel of committing “genocide,” “ethnic cleansing,” and “apartheid.” She has also alleged that American support for Israel stems from “anti-Palestinian racism.”
US Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA), another staunch critic of Israel and progressive lawmaker, also used Thanksgiving as an opportunity to take shots at America, arguing that the beloved holiday represents “stolen land and broken treaties” for Native Americans.
Lee has been on the receiving end of immense criticism over her anti-Israel rhetoric in the year following the Oct. 7 atrocities. In the weeks following the slaughter, Lee co-sponsored a resolution calling for a “ceasefire” between Israel and Hamas. She has similarly accused the Jewish state of committing “genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza. In a statement commemorating the anniversary of Oct. 7, Lee only wrote that she mourned “those killed one year ago and those massacred in the year since,” seemingly drawing an equivalence between Hamas’s terrorism and Israel’s defensive military operations.
“Thanksgiving is a time of gratitude and togetherness for many, but it’s also a reminder of stolen land and broken treaties for others. Today, let’s honor Native communities by committing to the fight for sovereignty, justice, and the promises this country has failed to keep,” Lee wrote.
In contrast, some other members of Congress called attention to the American hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza in their Thanksgiving statements.
“As we gather with family today, we must not forget the families who are missing their loved ones who were taken hostage by Hamas 418 days ago — including New York’s own Omer Neutra,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) said. “Let us pray that by this time next year, they will be reunited safely with their families.”
“As you spend Thanksgiving with your family and friends, don’t forget the 100+ families whose loved ones are being held hostage by Iran-backed Hamas for the second holiday season in a row. It’’ been 419 days. Enough! Bring them home NOW!” US Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) said in a statement, referring to the 101 hostages still in captivity in Gaza.
Of the remaining hostages, seven are Americans.
The post Rashida Tlaib Uses Thanksgiving Message to Express Solidarity With ‘Palestine,’ Other ‘Indigenous People’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Antisemitism in Berlin Surges to Record Levels This Year, New Data Show
Pro-Hamas demonstrators marching in Munich, Germany. Photo: Reuters/Alexander Pohl
The number of antisemitic incidents in Berlin in just the first six months of this year surpassed the total for all of 2023 and reached the highest annual count on record, according to a new German report.
Germany’s Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS) on Thursday released data documenting 1,383 incidents of antisemitism in the German capital from January to June, averaging nearly eight a day.
The figure compiled by RIAS, a federally-funded body, was a significant increase from the 1,270 antisemitic outrages tallied in 2023 and the highest count for a single year since RIAS began monitoring antisemitic incidents in 2015.
Of the 1,383 incidents documented in the first half of this year in Berlin, two were cases of “extreme violence,” another 23 were attacks (six of which were against children), and 37 were targeted acts of property damage, including 21 acts involving memorials.
In the first extremely violent incident, a Jewish student in Mitte was punched several times in the face on the street and then kicked in the face after he fell to the ground in February 2024. The victim, a member of student groups working to combat antisemitism, had been doxed online as a “right-wing Zionist,” according to The Jerusalem Post.
The second incident also occurred in Mitte, this time in May, when a visibly Jewish Ukrainian was physically attacked by an unknown assailant while on the way to synagogue. The attacker yelled “Free Palestine” while assaulting the victim, and no one reportedly intervened.
RIAS also documented 28 threats, such as direct messages on social media, and 1,240 cases of abusive behavior.
“The content of antisemitism also continued to be more violent and uninhibited. Seventy-one incidents contained threats of annihilation, including graffiti that openly called for the killing of Jews,” the report noted.
In the first half of 2024, 74 antisemitic incidents were documented in educational institutions in Berlin, including 27 incidents in schools. “The nature of the incidents is alarming: Jewish or Israeli children were beaten, spat on, threatened, and treated with hostility by their classmates,” according to RIAS. “Antisemitic incidents occurred in schools in 9 of 12 Berlin districts.”
A striking 71.6 percent of all antisemitic incidents during the first half of 2024 in the German capital were related to Israel.
RIAS previously reported a major spike in antisemitic incidents across Germany since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.
There have been 230 antisemitic outrages per month since Oct. 7, 2023, compared to around 50 such incidents per month before the onslaught.
“These data indicate a lasting change in the dynamics of incidents: the number of antisemitic incidents in Berlin remained at a significantly higher level in the first half of the year than in the months and years before, starting with the sharp increase following Oct. 7,” RIAS summarized.
However, many antisemitic incidents had nothing to do with Israel or its ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza.
“It can be observed that in this context the boundaries of what can be said have shifted overall and some antisemitic statements seem to be acceptable even to [normative] society,” RIAS wrote. “They range from the demonization and delegitimization of Israel, to antisemitic conspiracy myths, trivialization of the Holocaust and reversals of perpetrator and victim, to open antisemitic insults.”
The antisemitism monitoring group concluded that rates of antisemitism show no sign of letting up in Berlin: “A downward trend is not foreseeable at the time of publication of the report.”
Europe has experienced an explosion of antisemitic incidents in the wake of the Hamas atrocities of last Oct. 7. In many countries, anti-Jewish hate crimes have spiked to record levels.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), police registered 5,154 antisemitic incidents in Germany last year, a 95 percent increase compared to the previous year.
However, experts believe that the true number of incidents is much higher but not recorded because of reluctance on the part of the victims.
“Only 20 percent of the antisemitic crimes are reported, so the real number should be five times what we have,” Felix Klein, the German federal government’s chief official dealing with antisemitism, told The Algemeiner in an interview last year.
The post Antisemitism in Berlin Surges to Record Levels This Year, New Data Show first appeared on Algemeiner.com.