Justine Fisher and Imri Bunim
A Walking Tour of Oct 7th at Kibbutz Reim: How 6 Men Fought Off 100 Terrorists- A Hero’s Tale
Justine Fisher - A Walking Tour of Oct 7th at Kibbutz Reim: How 6 Men Fought Off 100 Terrorists - A Hero’s Tale
- Good morning, everybody, from New York. I get to host a lot of lockdown university sessions, but I think this one that we are all about to experience together is going to be unique. For the next hour, we’re going to spend time with David and Emory, really hearing the most remarkable story of heroism, hope, and resilience. As someone who’s been on the ground in Israel twice since the war started, the unbelievable pieces, how many stories you can find of Israelis who risked everything and gave the most unbelievable examples of heroism. I am also mindful that David and Emory are on the southern border near the Gaza envelope, and my phone is telling me about sirens going off in the area. So we will go today for an hour, but we will also be mindful of the fact that if sirens go off, David and Emory will need to take shelter. So we’ll ask everybody to stay with us. So David grew up in London in mid earlier in 2002 and served in the Army. He’s a reservist, and on his deployment by coincidence, Emory was David’s commander during their regular service. And they have a close relationship that’s continued today. Emory moved to Kibbutz Re'im 13 years ago. He has three kids and he works in the informal education system in a nearby kibbutz. And David and Emory are going to take us on a tour this morning and tell us about what happened on October 7th. And then we’re going to ask Yotam Polizer, the CEO of IsraAID, who are working with Kibbutz Re'im to rebuild their future and a little bit more about that. So David, I’m going to hand it over to you.
Thanks, Carly. Welcome, everyone. Thank you very much for joining us, taking the time. So I’m here with Emory, who as Carly said, was my commander in the army some 20 years ago. And when I heard the story of what happened here, I thought it was super important. I walked around the kibbutz with Emory and he showed me what happened. And I thought it was super important that the message of what the kibbutz is, and what happened here should be told. I think it’s a kind of a story that, it’s a story of hope as much as a story of bravery. And I really wanted you guys to hear it firsthand from one of the five or six people that fought back on the kibbutz and held off over a hundred terrorists for three, four hours until the army sort of ragged and tagged the parts of the army came and saved the kibbutz, finally. Just a few housekeeping points. As Carly said, we might need to jump off if there’s a siren overhead, which you guys will hear because we’re right on the border and there’s already artillery going out the other way. So if that happens, excuse the jump and the run. And that’s about it really. So I’m going to pass over to Emory. I’m going to sort of stand behind the camera now. And Emory’s going to talk us through what happened on the 7th of October in Kibbutz Re'im.
Hello, everyone. Good morning to you there in America. Happy Hanukkah. Thank you very much for joining us here in Kibbutz Re'im, very close to the border of Gaza. This is the West behind me. As you see, the sun will go down soon and Gaza is just there. And I was choosing to come and live here in this kibbutz 13 years ago because I was sure that this is the best way to educate my children, to grow up my children just here next to this field around, and to see all the green around during the winter time and then all the blossom in summer and the spring. And we have just, it’s just a piece of heaven, this place here, with great people. And as you can see, I have a weapon because I’m a part of the . The is the rapid response team. And the reason why we have this force is in order that if something has happened and any terrorist is getting inside the kibbutz, so we know where to go because we know in which house he is. And then we can help the army to come and help them to find their correct place, because we know this place. So basically, all what we need to do is that if something happened, so we need to delay the terrorist, the one terrorist that will come, or maybe two to delay them for eight minutes, maybe 12 minutes because there is a base very close to here. And from there, the army will come. And this is why we have this rapid response team. And on the morning of October 7th, this Saturday, in our fridge, we had a lot of food that we wanted to eat because it was the last holiday, it was Simchat Torah. And I was sure I’m going to go around in the fields for the last time because it’s the last day of the holidays with my children on a bicycle. And then to sit in the sukkah for the last time and to play football for the last time before we’re going back to school after two weeks of vacation. And instead, at 6:30, we heard such a big, very big explosions all over, all around, we are ready, we know what to do when there are some explosion, just to go inside the shelter and to wait. And this is what we did.
Like every time that it happened, we went inside the shelters. And this time, the explosions was much, much, much stronger than ever and it kept going and going and going and it didn’t finish. It’s not like a few bombs and then it’s the end. And it kept going, and we hear a lot of explosions from all over, a lot of big mess outside. And after 20 minutes, like 10 minutes before seven, we heard some shoots from a light weapon close to us. And this is something which we don’t know, it’s not something similar, something that’s never happened before. And in that time I said to my wife and to my children, okay, probably I need to take my weapon. I had my gun in a safe, inside my house. I didn’t need to go to anywhere, just to take the weapon. And thanks to some donations that we had in the past years, I had this helmet and I had shoes, good shoes, some gloves. We got also this here and here. We had some help from some donations in the past that really made us ready even though we find out at 7:15 when I got out, I got just to there because you see here, this is the line, the fence of the kibbutz. And we look at the West because in the site to gather, because we saw that if there will come few terrorists or one terrorist, they will come hidden here in this wood and they will come from there. This is the Stream, okay? So they will come hidden from the low of the , and they will come to here. So we stand here on the fence. Most of us were there and we find out that we have five people here. And there was another one in the other side of the kibbutz.
So the commander took his car and he went to bring the other one. So basically we were six people, at 7:20 with guns, each guy, each soldier, each fighter had five magazines and each one had 29 bullets. So basically we had 150 bullets each. And we were here and we saw a big mess on the roads. We heard explosions from all over. We understood that it’s not something of one terrorist or two or four or 10. We saw them fighting on the kibbutz there. We saw them making a lot of mess on the roads right here, and here on this road, this is the road that go to the East to a Fatim and to Lim. And we saw a lot of pickup trucks and on the back of these pickup trucks, they had RPGs, they had heavy weapon that was already on the roof, ready to kill our life, our way of life, our culture, our values. And we saw that there were some missiles that gone on the base. So we understood that no one will come from the bases. We understood that the roads, there is a chaos on the roads. We understood that they go east of us. So basically we understood that we are alone, that there are a lot of terrorists that going to come to this kibbutz. And we are alone here and we need to do our best because we cannot lose this situation. It’s defending our own home, our own community, our neighbours, our way of education, all our culture, and we’re going to do our best because we cannot lose in this battle. We must.
[David] Where were your wife and your kids when you left the house?
My wife and my children were inside the shelter. In that time, there was stay, my house is over there and most of the day, I was exactly in the other side of the kibbutz. And basically I came to here to this direction as well. Okay, now we will walk. And so now I will go with you a little bit. We will jump and around the time of at 10:30, but at 9:30 on the morning, we understood that we must come to this area of the kibbutz after we had been in a different area because we saw that there are a lot of flames, a lot of fires, houses and trees were on flames here. And no one came to help in that area. So we understood we were only two of us, me and my friend, Nev. Nev was also a commander in the platoon where David was. And we became good friends, me and Nev Truvia. And after I finished my service in the army and invited me to come here and to be his neighbour, so I thought, well, actually that will be great to live just here and to have this view all the time. And the atmosphere inside the kibbutz was amazing. And we find ourself for two hours. I’m going to walk that direction soon to tell you where I was in the, me and Nev in the first two hours, and after two hours, because what we heard was police vehicle that came outside the kibbutz. And I don’t know if you can see, but there’s a small road just outside the fence. And the police officer, they came and-
[David] What happened here, exactly?
What happened here? Okay, so basically the terrorists, these horrible monsters, all what they want is to take hostages. So they took a sort of a towel, they put some gas on it and they dropped it on the top of the roof. You want to go up? Okay. And the house started to get on fire and they waited until the family cannot have the smoke anymore. And they will go out and then the terrorists will take them.
[David] This was the first point they came to on the kibbutz?
No, they came in few spots. It took them some time and they burned this house and the house just next to that. Well, I will jump to the time of 10:30. Around 10:30 in the morning, me and the few police officers, we came from that side and we took out all this family that was living here, their beautiful life that they used to have. Also in that family, there were nine people inside the shelter while the house got burned, two of them on wheelchairs. And somehow one of these miracles that we had on the 7th of October that no one was dead in that house. Well, the house is gone. Okay, all their art, all their, everything that, but they’re alive.
[David] And how many people live on the kibbutz?
Four, around 400 in total. Okay. So basically, this is where the, and here, also that was the second family that we bring them out through here, through this window. We knocked on the window and we told them that it’s us and it’s safe and they can go out. So we moved them to a different shelter.
[David] So while the house was on fire here, the family were inside the shelter and you came and rescued.
Yeah, we came and we told them, it’s okay, you can go out. Yeah, they were like, now we’re talking about the time of around 9:30 to 9:40. There were something like 15 terrorists around here and you see it going down and the vehicle of the police came from there and they were shooting at them. So all the terrorists moved to shoot back.
[David] This was once the police had come, they were on the other side of the, they were outside the kibbutz shooting inside.
Yes.
[David] And you were situated behind the terrorists and the police were in the front of the terrorists.
Yeah, that was the first time that we met this group of terrorists. They had like three, one in the north of the kibbutz, the second, I will tell you soon about 20 that came to the area of the education. And the third group of terrorists, they came to here, they burned this house and then they started to burn this house just there. Okay. But once they heard the police and we also heard the police from the other neighbourhood. So we ran all the way and it was not exactly here, it was from there, just next to the car, just next to this white car there. So me and Truvia, we came hidden all the way to this car. And from there we were shooting, there were like 15, 20 terrorists here in that area. They were all with the face to the police officers and somehow a big miracle from, I don’t know, we came just on the correct time to shoot them in the back. So, and after we shoot them from here, we ran again to the first neighbourhood where we went. And when we came back to here, they were not here anymore. So basically from all these houses that got burned, no one died at the end. So they’re all alive.
[David] How many people overall were killed from the kibbutz?
Okay, we’ll walk, okay? It’s pretty hard to say how many people got killed here. We have the soldiers and police officers that came all the way from their houses, no matter from where, they came and they fight just here in Re'im to save our people and our community. I don’t know how many of them exactly, I would say around 10 soldiers and police officers that got killed in order to save our community. And besides that, there were people from the party, if you heard about the Nova party, and they ran to the northern part of the kibbutz and they really wanted to find the shelter and many of them got killed inside the kibbutz, besides that five people from the kibbutz got killed in that day.
[David] And do you have any hostages from the kibbutz that is?
We used to, we used to have one boy, he came back and I’m so happy about that. And besides that, we had five Thais that they got kidnapped. And this is also something to tell about our community. When we are doing our, all our holidays, we’re inviting the Thais to sit with us, they’re foreign workers, they’re pretty much part of this community and we’re missing our community. It’s been like more than two months since the last time where people used to live in these houses.
[David] Where is everyone living right now?
We are still in a lot in the hotel, most of the community. And soon we are going to move to Tel Aviv to live there. After the Hanukkah, we’ll move to Tel Aviv and we really hope to keep all our values, all our culture, all our way of education in that time before we’re coming back to here and-
[David] And just so everyone can see, on every house, there’s a number that’s being graffitied on, which is from the Army’s ordinance disposal unit, which has come and cleared every single building to make sure that there’s no trap, no explosives or anything like that that was left by the terrorists. So if you see graffiti, that’s what it’s for. So what time did you come to, what time were you around here?
Now, let’s say that now we’re again back to October 7th, around 7:30, 7:35 in the morning. We are two people, Nev Truvia, my friend and I, and we’re going to get directed because the commander, our , he said that we find out that on the gate, the southern gates, we have two gates to the kibbutz, the northern and the southern, said that there are two pickup trucks and a lot of terrorists start to get inside by walking from the gate. And oh, look at that. We love our grass so much. Oh, we’ll run through the water.
[David] Open the back.
Okay, you can see still the sukkah of the children right there. And typically in that time when we were running on this Saturday morning, we ran to this direction and you saw your kibbutz, all their community know that they’re inside the shelters and it gave you a lot of power to know that you must win. And basically we came, it will be a little hard to go there.
[David] So you basically knew that all the residents of the kibbutz were inside the shelters and anyone who was outside was a terrorist and that’s the way you knew where to find them and where to go.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The kibbutz was empty. Everyone were inside the shelters and we saw them from there. This is the last line of patent, okay? We knew that if the terrorists are inside this neighbourhood at behind us, we won’t do it because we are only two against, they look like a lot. We really count at least 20 in this area. So the first shooting we did were from this direction. Okay, there is the football field right there and next to it there is a small, what you call the citrus play?
[David] Orchard.
Orchard. And we saw that few stay there. So we saw that probably the commanders and the others start to go there in that booth. So we were shooting to this direction, okay? We tried to hit the so-called commanders, and after shooting them from here, we want them to go to that direction. Well, of course we want them to go away, but we couldn’t make them to come to this direction because here you have neighbourhoods full of residents. But there, I don’t know if you can see the light blue house. Can you see that?
[David] Yeah.
Okay. So basically in another centimetre, you will see there is a road. After this road is the educational area.
[David] You wanted to create a defensive line to getting to the residential area where the people are.
So from here, either we’ll go to this light blue house or to the other house just next or to another white house there. This house is the gym. So we knew that it’s Saturday morning and if this horrible terrorists will get inside these houses, it’ll take them time for nothing because they won’t find any hostages, any residence, nothing. So we saw them going here in this bush. Okay. And from that point here, we saw the first one that go between the houses to that direction and then the second one. And because there is this field, so they needed to go around.
[David] This is the zoo, right?
The zoo, yeah, the zoo.
[David] The kibbutz zoo.
Which is very educational and helping the children. The children used to come in morning to that house and then to go to check how many eggs there are, because of the chickens or maybe to help to the rabbit or the goat. The third one that walked and he was looking at the first and the second one. So from here we were shooting him, we were shooting him from that angle and that’s a little bit before eight. And that make the first two to go back and to check if everything is good. They were a little confused if they should shoot to that area again. In that time, we were hidden. We were hidden and we started to go to that direction there.
[David] So the area over there, that’s where the terrorists came sat. And did they, were they well-organized or were they a bit?
They were pretty much organised. They were walking like, I would say 15, 16 of them went to that direction. Five were staying there in the orchard. Okay, and they split two groups, but then the groups also of four or five of them, we used to find them when they were confusing. And then we were shooting on a group of five, three, and then we ran to a different spot. So basically it make them, because they find nothing in this house and then nothing in the other house and nothing there. So they started to be confused. They had that feeling that the kibbutz is empty, you want to go to this direction or maybe from the around.
[David] Whatever you .
Okay, we’ll go from here.
[David] Which is the direction that you went in on the 7th of October?
Yeah, we were not inside this area. That was the terrorist area. We didn’t get inside, we were on the road that we just saw in the back.
[David] Emory, did you guys run out of ammunition at any time? Did you?
No, no, no. Every time that I say we were shooting, it’s maximum three bullets.
[David] So there was no situation where you took weapons from the terrorists?
No, actually we thought about that. There was a body here and we thought about that, and then we thought that it might be a trap. So we decided not to do that.
[David] Okay.
Later on we find out that it was correct, the fact that we didn’t do it. Okay, so.
[David] You ran along here or ran around there?
No, no, no, we were not here at all. Okay, this is the area of the terrorist here, you see the orchard there? There was, the commanders were sitting there, they were looking snaps and they had the radio connection. They were sitting here and they were waiting to this guy that came here, bring the, and to decide what to do. Okay, as you can see, this is the place where the ducks and the chicken used to live. Now the .
[David] The animals.
The animals, yeah, the animals. The goats.
[David] Is anyone living back in the kibbutz at the moment?
There are a few that started to come back. And basically this place, it’s just like my backyard. Okay, this is, here, this area, it’s just showing why am I living here? Because in this light blue house, this is where my son go, the children from the first grade until the third grade, after school, or instead of school in the holiday vacation, this is where they go, they’ve grown vegetables, they have place to play, they can climb on the tree, they can imagine, they can feel the ground. And in the morning, they really love to come to this zoo. Here is the fire camp down for the children.
[David] So all these buildings were empty in the morning?
Yeah, they were all empty.
[David] And your plan was to push it, push the terrorists into this area here?
Yes.
[David] Where there were no people.
Yes, yes, yes, exactly. To let them go to this house, to this house, because they’re empty. The house is there, it’s a-
[David] Warehouse.
Warehouse, okay? So we knew that they can go and to spend their time until the army comes or any help to let them to be here. Even though that they were a lot, we decided not to go to a fight between us and them just to make them know that we are here. So sometimes we were shooting them from that direction, sometimes from that direction and then from that direction.
[David] And how long did it take for the army to come or the first force from the police or the army to come?
The first force was this police that I told you that came from the outside.
[David] And they stayed outside the kibbutz?
They stayed outside the kibbutz, but what they made, because this police, you cannot really see, but the gate is there and on the back gate, there were two pickup trucks that just wanted people to come and then to make a big chaos.
[David] And how long did it take for the first, for the police to come to divert?
The police came, we had another big miracle. One of our members in the respond team, in the , he is the one that is managing the, where people come to do camping in the school park, which is just there 15 minutes. So when it started the sirens, he went to there to calm the people that are living in the tents and in the caravans. So he went there and at 8:15, because he heard us talking, he understood that there are many, many, many terrorists inside the kibbutz. So he took his car and he came and he told us that there are two pickup trucks there. And he stayed outside the kibbutz, he find himself a tree. And the police that came joined him and he explained to them what to do. And he was the connection to our force, that inside the kibbutz. And he made them inside.
[David] And which time was this?
At nine, almost 10 o'clock. After I show you what we did there and after, the police go on the vehicle, they made us to leave this neighbourhood for the first time. After two hours, we moved to the place where I showed you in the beginning. And then we came back at 9:50 something, almost 10. And we were made sure that there are no terrorists inside. And as you can see, you see there are some soldiers, they’re playing football. In that time at 10 o'clock, our friend Oan, another full brave heroes, they, by walking inside, they came inside. That was at 10 o'clock. And in that point, I felt that until clock was that, I’m going to be dead and that horrible will happen to our community and all these places that . At 10 o'clock, once I saw them get inside, I had a feeling that, okay, the kibbutz will be safe today. And that was something that I felt after around 10 o'clock, even if I was feeling that even if I’m going to be dead today, so there will be someone else to do my duty. Okay, I will just show you around because in this area, no one will defeat me because this is my house. This is all my values. This is the reason why I came here, was to grow up my children here. And with this beautiful bushes to feel how it feels when you’ve grown up your own leaves for the tea or your own vegetables or your own egg or the milk. Well, now it’s after the army was here for a while, but we were shooting the terrorists from here in the beginning to that area.
[David] Straight through on this direction?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because they came through here and after we were shooting them, we ran and we were hidden. And every time we jumped from a different bush.
[David] So where is, which area of the kibbutz was most badly damaged?
The most badly damaged? Okay, let’s go to there.
[David] Let’s go over there and see.
Okay.
[David] So we can really understand a little bit of the damage. And is anyone here looking after the kibbutz, the gardens, the pets, things like this?
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. All the community is on it and we’re all taking care of what we can, just maybe one look on the way that we’re educating our children with a lot of sport, a lot of toys, a lot of go out, fill the ground, fill the area, be together. And so at 9:15, after the police officer came and helped us, we find ourself on the road between the neighbourhood and to this area. And we explained to the police officers exactly the tactics or what we need to defend. And while we were talking, so from this bushes right there where you can see the tree, suddenly came terrorists. And before that, once we saw terrorists, we even decided sometimes not to shoot or to shoot only one bullet. And suddenly instead of two people, we were seven, and they heard all these seven arms together, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And really there was, the feeling like, we are here, we have a strong line. And all the terrorists that were inside this area, this is the , how do you say ?
[David] The secretary.
This is the secretary of the kibbutz. Again, it was empty on this Saturday. This house here, it’s an officer’s house. It was empty in that Saturday. So basically because we were sure that there is a big line, a big long line, the terrorists were here all around for two hours and they find no one. They heard only silence and us shooting at them each time from a different angle. So all this.
[David] And how, all this time, your family, everyone’s family, they’re all in the shelters.
Yes.
[David] And how are you communicating with them to let them know to stay in the shelter and you guys are okay?
WhatsApp.
[David] WhatsApp.
Yes, WhatsApp. Once a while I was sending art to my wife and I was telling her that we are alive because for this time, the most important things that I, the thing I needed to know, that my other friends are alive. For as long as you’re alive, you still can use your weapon. You still can come from one bush, you still can be useful. So that was the first thing that was very important to us, to stay alive and all the six members of the , morning, just so, this is Danny. This is my friend, Danny. Danny is responsible about the gardening.
[Carly] David, we can’t hear Danny, so you’ll need to go.
[David] Oh, yeah.
It’s very important to take care of this garden. Very important that the citizen of this village, that know that it’s still growing, the crusting, the cutting, still dropping, and still taken care of. That’s why. It’s my home. It’s our home.
Thank you. Now again, there’s no camera that will show you how beauty is this place. So it’s not only green, there are a lot of flowers and it’s very seasonal. Every season you will see different fruits on the tree, different colours, and-
[David] Emory, how do you explain the difference between what happened here and on Be'eri, for example, where with the number of casualties and the reaction of the response team there, which didn’t have weapons to what you guys did? Because they suffered many more casualties.
Now let’s say that we’re at the time of 11:15, in that day at 7th of October, October 7th. And we were going here and instead of two that we were in the beginning, we had these four police officers and another one and another two that joined us. And I remember me just here going this direction because we had a lot of shooting from that area. And I could see the smoke that’s coming from Be'eri.
[David] How close is Be'eri here?
Be'eri is like seven kilometres a little north to us, but it’s on a hill. And you can see it’s very close from a lot of places in the kibbutz. And I could understand that we are in the middle of a big miracle that probably in a lot of other settlements didn’t happen. Somehow in our kibbutz, they came to the empty houses and we could delay them.
[David] So it was just a matter of luck. It wasn’t.
Also, we had a few minutes to understand the situation because in the beginning we were there on the other side of the kibbutz and I told you that we could see that all the terrorists going on the road to Liam and to Fakim, and we could see that they’re fighting against the bases. And we saw the chaos on the roads. So we understood that we are alone and that made us fight in a different way. We were gorilla warriors. And besides that, in Be'eri, people came, they went outside their house with the weapon and the terrorists were waiting in the bush just next to it. So basically we had like five minutes to understand the situation. And besides that, we had so much, so much miracles that you cannot count. It’ll take me a month to explain how many miracles were here. But now we are going again to the fight in the October 7th and we are going here, nine of us. And suddenly you feel, wow, we are a big force. We are nine. And we went this direction there, this is the young people neighbourhood in our kibbutz. It’s come on that once the boy or the girl finishing, graduating school. So they get their own room in the young neighbourhood, which is a one room plus a living room and a shelter. And here, there is the road that go from the back gate to the front gate. And the terrorists, most of them came from the front gate and the first thing that they saw was the neighbourhood of the young. And this is where we’re going now to see a lot of damage. I just want to say that maybe you see this olive trees right there. I was there with the police officer and then the terrorists started to shoot on us from there. So we started to scream, go to there, go to there, go to there. And then someone from this house with the red roof, he recognised my voice. So he opened the window a little bit and he shouted to me that he has someone that got injured from a shoot inside his room. So I told him, okay, but exactly in that time, one of the police officers, he got shot as well. So we were here on these trees and we were shooting to this area there, there is another big wood of trees, olive trees. And we were shooting to this direction. There were a lot of cars that came from the party, a lot of cars on the road right here.
[David] From the Nova party, they came to the kibbutz because they thought it was safe there.
[Emory] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[David] And they got caught up in the main terrorist that-
Many of them caught up. But here, just in this house, he was shouting for me while the bushes were a little lower so I could see the window. And he shouted to me, I was just here. So I told him, okay, I will come and take you out soon. The police officer, he ran to there and then to there next to this tractor. And then two police officers came to help him there. And so, and they take him back to there. And then I came and I saw maybe 20, more than 20 because they came from two shelters, 20 guys that came from the party and they were dressed like you dress when you go to the party of your life and you’re going to have fun and you’re going just to dance and to enjoy the fact that you are living and you are young and there are many young people around you going just to dance and to hear music and look what happened, they find themselves locked in a shelter for four hours. They felt like the air is going out. But once they hear us, so they opened the window and we took them back to the .
[David] The infirmary.
[Emory] Yeah.
[David] The clinic, the clinic.
To the clinic. We opened the clinic and we made them to stay there. It was pretty hard, the situation, because they really freaked out there. And what’d I say? There are nine. Like 20.
[David] There were 20 people in here?
Yeah, 20. Somehow, we managed to take them out. Okay, we’ll go a little bit around here. This is where the young guy living, only one of them had a weapon and he had only one magazine of 30 bullets and he basically killed two terrorists. But once his magazine finished, the terrorists were here around doing whatever they want while our young guy is holding the door of the shelter and don’t let them inside. It was here maybe, go. People came from the party to this room because they smoke on the phone. And the guy that’s living here with, he had a weapon. He left seven people from the party to get inside in the room. And I don’t know how much you can think, this darkness. He was staying in the room and he was shooting at them, the terrorist.
[David] From inside the room out?
Yeah, he killed the first one. He killed the second one. And then he had no more bullets.
[David] And what happened to everyone in this room?
The seven people were inside the shelter and one guy unarmed, a 20-year-old brave boy , be here. And he got killed from a grenade just here. And the one that owned the house went outside this window and climbed on the roof. And he was staying on the roof for four hours with his gun and no bullets until we came and we made him to go out. Okay, we’ll keep going here. This is the young neighbourhood. Amazing people that just in one day find themselves in the middle of this horrible terror attack. But I was not really fighting here, but our commander, it was, yeah, here on this sidewalk. And from that sidewalk, we basically didn’t let any of the terrorists, they were again, two people, the commander and another, his couple, and they were so brave, they made a lot, I would say more than 50 terrorists here in this neighbourhood. And they didn’t move to all the rest of the kibbutz. Maybe the last miracle we had was here in this centre was one guy, he is like 21 years old, 22. And he was inside and in a certain point, he decided to open the window and to try to escape. He opened the window and the terrorists were shooting at him. He got injured on his hand, he closed the window. And since then there was no connection with this guy. The terrorists, there were a few terrorists here in that shelter, our commander knew that this shelter is empty, okay? That there are only terrorists. It was already at nighttime when the tank came from there to shoot on this house while the terrorists were inside. And our commander told them, you can shoot this shelter but make no damage to the shelter just next to it. Because our commander believed that this guy, still alive. And close to the morning, this guy came out alive from this centre.
[David] This whole neighbourhood was destroyed completely.
[Emory] Yeah, this whole neighbourhood was destroyed. There was something like 50 terrorists here around.
[David] So what happened to the terrorists inside this shelter? Were all killed?
Probably yes. Maybe in the first time when the tank was shooting, two of them escaped. And these are the two that came to the house of Tuvia at close to two o'clock in the morning. Here you can see the terrorists came, they brought with them first aid, they brought with them food. They wanted to conquer Re'im, just the same they wanted to conquer each kibbutz and base in , they wanted to stay here for a few days and to make sure that each help that will come will have to fight the way inside, instead of just come and help. And so much brave, so many brave people. Some of them just came out from their houses, somewhere in Israel, took the gun, went inside the car without, no anything. They find themself here and they fight against the terrorists. Few of them were dead and they are in our memory, they’re in our heart. And once we come back to live here, of course their families will be a big part from this community.
[David] What time did everything really settle down when you realised you had full control? The army was here.
I would say there was the feeling in the afternoon, but actually there was still big mess. And yet at two o'clock, the army needed to get inside the house of Niv Tuvia, the one that was my couple during the-
[David] Two o'clock in the morning.
Two o'clock in the morning between Saturday and Sunday, that’s when the parachute, they came inside his house, they brought two grenades inside, and the terrorists are killed. And Tuvia and his family are alive. So, and that was one of the last.
[David] So your wife and family were in the shelter for 17, 18 hours?
Yes.
[David] Till two, three o'clock in the morning?
No, until more than that. Because only in the morning of eight of October, around nine o'clock, a message in the WhatsApp group, prepare a bag of things, go out the shelter, prepare a bag and go back to the shelter. And around 11 o'clock, that was the time they say, each one who can, go to your car and go away from here. And basically what they saw on the road between here and the Wim, you could see that in the WhatsApp group, a lot of them failed, we cover the window, don’t let the children look on what there is, there are on the roads around the kibbutz.
[David] And how are your children now?
My children, they’re alive. They got no damage. I mean on the body. They know that I’m alive. They saw, they went through a lot, they met all the people. The feeling of the community in the first few days were like, wow, we’re so lucky for the fact that we had only five people that got murdered from the kibbutz. And the situation is different because some kibbutzim look, all the kibbutz look like that. Instead of beautiful trees, you have just fire. And here it’s only in one part of the kibbutz.
[David] So there are other neighbourhoods that are as badly damaged as this?
No, there’re other kibbutzim, there are other kibbutzim in the area that most of the kibbutz look like that.
[Carly] David, I’m to ask Yotam to join us in a minute because I’m just mindful of time.
[David] Okay, yup, no worries.
[Carly] So that he can start to explain what next for the kibbutz.
[David] Okay, and so maybe on that note, Emory, well, as we finish up, maybe talk a little bit about how you see the kibbutz coming back, the future for the kibbutz.
The future of the kibbutz, I believe it will come back much, much stronger. We’ll keep all our beautiful ceremonies, all our beautiful holidays, all our beautiful life. But now we are combined with a lot of other parts of the nation and all our .
[David] People.
All our people. Even if these people are in America or in England or in Australia, it won’t be easy, but we will be much stronger after all. And we’ll come back only when the other kibbutzim and the other moshavim around will come back because we all go to the same schools, to the same activities all the time. So we’re all combined together, all the community.
[David] Great. Thank you. So shall we pass it over? Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you both for that unbelievable experience. Emory, we are so glad that you are here today and I think you are the most Israeli line of the session. You are only useful if you are alive, but we are so touched that you’ve taken the time to come back to the kibbutz and share your story and for David to show us around. And I’m going to ask Yotam Polizer, the CEO of IsraAID now to share five minutes on how he’s partnering with you to build back a stronger kibbutz for you all.
Thank you, Carly. And I know we’re really at time, so I’ll even take less than five minutes and I’ll share first of all that it’s very fitting with so many miracles that Emory spoke about that we’re now at Hanukkah and it’s unbelievable heroism that Emory represents. And he’s also such a kibbutznik in a good way, so modest, so connected to the land and to his community and to his family, it’s so inspiring. So Israel very quickly is a non-governmental humanitarian organisation. We worked in 62 countries around the world and our goal was to bring Israeli expertise to disaster areas like Ukraine, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Since October 7th for the first time in our history where we’re working in Israel and we’re helping communities like Kibbutz Re'im with both immediate relief and long-term recovery. And the incredible story of Kibbutz Re'im recovery is a part of a big effort that we are only playing a small role at with different companies like Viola and others who together with the community members came up with a plan to build a temporary house for the kibbutz in Tel Aviv.
So you saw the beautiful community and the beautiful kibbutz. So you can imagine how culturally different it is, but we’re also very, very excited that it’s happening and that these kibbutz, these wonderful community that are now in a temporary shelter in a Latin hotel, in a very challenging situation, they will have a temporary home in Tel Aviv and we will work with them and the local community in Tel Aviv to provide education, mental health as you can hear and see from Emory stories, we’re talking about a generational trauma. So mental health support will be needed for the whole community and all of these communities who went through such terrible atrocities. So our goal is to help them and support them all the way until they’ll be finally be able to go back to their beautiful home. And meeting these kibbutz member and the community members in a lot, I share the hope of Emory that these kibbutz not only will come back, but will come back much stronger and will experience what we call post-traumatic growth. These people are absolutely incredible and inspiring and they will need all the help from everyone, from all of us, both immediately and in the long run because as you can see, it will take years for full recovery. But we will be with them for as long as they need us. Thank you and happy Hanukkah.
- Thank you, Yotam. So for those of you who would like to learn more about how to support Kibbutz Re'im, we’ll send a link round afterwards on email and you know, as we’ve all read, there is countless stories like this across the Gaza envelope in Southern Israel and we are really moved that we were able to share this story with you today. And as you heard from David and Emory, the solidarity and support, you know, from all of us around the world means a huge amount to those in Israel who are trying to rebuild their lives. So continue to reach out and engage and look for opportunities to show solidarity and thank you to Emory and all of his fighters that day who risked everything, and to David for joining us so that we can try and understand what happened, and Yotam, to you and the team at Israel doing unbelievable work on the ground in Israel for the first time ever, thank you very much, and we look forward to hearing more about your work.