British Jew, 59, speaks of horror in Israel after her kibbutz came under fire from Hamas militants for five hours
- Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on Israel in early hours of Saturday
British Jew Esther Marcus has spoken of her horror as her kibbutz in southern Israel came under sustained fire from Hamas terrorists for five hours.
Esther, 59, who originally comes from London but moved to Israel in 1984, has been stuck with her family of seven in a single safe room since 6.30 Saturday morning and they don’t know when they will be able to leave.
The kibbutz Alumim is just three kilometres from the Gaza border and was one of many villages and settlements which Palestinian militants tried to overrun.
‘I’ve been with my husband, son, his wife, and my daughter and her two babies in this single room,’ she tells MailOnline.
‘The first we knew was when the air siren went off. Because it goes off so often here so close to the border it has a special sound which is meant to make it less frightening. We all headed into the saferoom – which has a bed and a coffee table – and we haven’t been able to leave here since.
British Jew Esther Marcus (pictured) has spoken of her horror as her kibbutz in southern Israel came under sustained fire from Hamas terrorists for five hours
Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on Israel in early hours of Saturday. Pictured: A man runs in the road as fires burn in Ashkelon, Israel, following rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip initiated by Islamic militant group Hamas
‘Quite quickly after the first rockets, we heard gunfire which was very close. We know there was a battle here on the kibbutz that went on for about five hours and we know people were hurt but we don’t know much more than that.
READ MORE: Who are Hamas? Everything you need to know about the Palestinian terror movement that has launched war on Israel
‘We got messages telling us terrorists were infiltrating and we shouldn’t move. Sometimes it sounded like a constant bout of shooting. There were times when we were told we had to try and stay as quiet as possible, which isn’t easy when you have two babies in the room with you, turn off all the lights and close the windows.
‘One of the struggles is not knowing what is happening other than what our phones are telling us; there could be terrorists next door and we wouldn’t know.
‘There are still rockets coming over all the time and it is complete chaos. My son and son-in-law have both been called up but at the moment they can’t go anywhere as we all have to stay inside.
‘As soon as they are allowed out, people know they will have to go off and fight.’
As a therapist as the local resilience centre, she has also been attempting to help her community; but admits that she feels powerless when people are not allowed to even leave their safe rooms because of the danger of more attacks.
‘There are lots of kids who went to a party at kibbutz nearby and they haven’t been heard of since; their parents don’t know what is going on and its unbelievably stressful.
Hamas claimed to have fired 5,000 rockets into Israel from the occupied Gaza Strip, setting off air raid sirens in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem
Hamas militants launched an attack on land, air and sea. Here, paragliders cross the border into Israeli settlements
Rockets are launched from the coastal Gaza strip towards Israel by militants in an unprececented attack
A ball of fire and smoke rise from an explosion on a Palestinian apartment tower following an Israeli air strike in Gaza City
‘It is chaos – people don’t even know who to phone to find out what is going on and, of course, no one can leave their houses. There are lots of people that I know who haven’t been accounted for and no one knows what is going on.
‘I’ve been answering the phone all day and some of them have been from people in hiding.
‘They are telling me where they are, but no one can get to them. I have spent a lot of time talking to a young woman who doesn’t have a safe room – she is hiding in the bathroom with her dog. She’s completely freaking out and nobody can help her. All we can do is hope for the best and pray.’
When Esther moved to the border village in the early 1990s it was a much more peaceful situation.
‘Many people from Gaza worked with us and we would go to the market there and beach there,’ she recalls.
‘It changed to a place with constant rocket attacks where we have 15 seconds to get to a safe room or a bomb shelter. And now this.’
Esther has another son who lives in different part of the kibbutz with his wife and baby daughter and she says they have already run out of food: ‘They are living on air.’
But as the family prepared for an uncomfortable night, she says she hopes they will be able to get out of the room soon.
‘But then, of course, there will be new dangers,’ she says as a full-scale war seems all but inevitable.
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