2023-10-28 11:33:39
Yifat Ben Shoshan wakes up early on October 7. It’s not even 6:30 a.m. Her husband, nearby, mutters: “I should have gotten up earlier to go exercise. » She answers : “Come on, take the opportunity to have a coffee with me. » It’s a special day – Simchat Torah, which concludes the Jewish holidays of Sukkot.
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This 53-year-old woman lives in Netiv Haasara. This moshav – an agricultural community – of 900 inhabitants is located 400 meters from the Gaza Strip. It is placed right against the barrier which encloses the enclave. So much so that every morning, when she gets up, she says: «Bonjour, Beit Lahya. » 400 meters away, after sandy land and food crops, the first low houses, topped with minarets, of the northernmost town in the Palestinian territory can be seen.
But this morning, Yifat Ben Shoshan doesn’t even have time to walk around the bed when she sees rockets rising in the sky. She shouts: ” sheltered ! », as the first sirens sound. She and her husband, her son, take cover in the shelter of their brand new house, completed two years ago. This is not a simple salvo. It is a barrage of thousands of projectiles that are sent from Gaza throughout Israeli territory, including Jerusalem. The phone sends some alerts from a specialized application. Then, the following message appears: “Lock yourself in your shelters, there are terrorists in Netiv Haasara. » Shortly after, the electricity and cellular network were cut off. Without power, it is impossible to close the metal shutters.
The most ambitious attack in Hamas history begins. The Islamist movement neutralizes the automatic machine guns and surveillance antennas that mark the Gaza fence using explosives dropped by small, slow-flying drones that are difficult to detect. Israel had developed an underground defense system in recent years to prevent Hamas from digging tunnels under the barrier. Hamas therefore passes over.
In the kibbutz of Kfar Aza, the body of a resident, covered with a tarpaulin, on October 10. ANDREW MCCONNELL FOR “THE WORLD” At a military base in southern Israel, military equipment and ammunition that Hamas attackers used during the October 7 attack, October 20, 2023. VIRGINIE NGUYEN HOANG FOR “THE WORLD” WORLD ”
In a few minutes, the Israeli army was rendered deaf and blind, on one of its most dangerous flanks. The Gaza Strip, subject to a double Israeli-Egyptian blockade since Hamas seized the enclave in 2007, is a suffocated territory, one of the densest in the world, with unemployment rates around the 50%. The Palestinian organization, considered terrorist by Israel, the European Union and the United States, rules the territory with an iron fist.
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