How One Man and His Family Survived the October 7th Massacre

It was 6:30 AM on October 7th when Itay Shabi and his wife, Moran, woke up to the sounds of pervasive rockets and bullets tearing through the sky. Everyone living in Kibbutz Beeri had been jolted from their sleep.

“From the beginning, we sensed that a war had started because it was unusual, even for us. The bullets and rockets did not stop all day long, until we escaped. There was a battlefield of bullets outside. The terrorists were screaming in Arabic outside.”

Pre October 7th, the residents of Kibbutz Beeri lived “harmoniously” next to the border of Gaza. The Jews in the Kibbutz extended tremendous kindness regularly to the Gazan civilians. Many of the members of the Kibbutz would drive to Gaza to transport sick children who needed surgery to Israeli hospitals, wait with them during and after their procedure, and then bring these children back to Gaza.

Running for Shelter

When the rockets began to fly overhead, the first thing Itay and his family did was run to the bomb shelter. Initially, they didn’t close the door because they assumed the rockets would last a few seconds and then they would be able to escape by car if needed. But the rockets continued to fall and they then realized that this was going to be a long ordeal. They closed the door.

“Within a few seconds of closing the door, we started getting text messages that there are terrorists inside of Kibbutz Beeri. People sent pictures to accompany the text messages. We understood what was happening as we started to hear shooting.”

Around 7:00 AM, Itay and his family began to hear screaming in Arabic.

“At 7:10 AM, the terrorists knocked on the door to our house. Just knocking. No banging.” Itay was bewildered. “I was thinking, a simple knock? I do not know why they just knocked. Maybe they were trying to fool us into thinking they were not terrorists.” Thankfully, they did not open the door.

The text messages became more intense. They knew where the terrorists were and could follow their path based on the flow of incoming texts.

After three hours, at 10:30 AM, the terrorists broke into the house.

“We understood that the terrorists were getting closer and closer and closer. I have one boy and one girl who are four years old. We were sitting in the bomb shelter with our twins, Sinai and Benaya.”

The four of them just waited. The army was unable to help because every time soldiers arrived on the scene, they were outnumbered by barbarian terrorists and killed.

“The minute they broke inside the house, the dog started barking. They shot and she started to whimper, so they shot again and again and again. They kept shooting. One of them shouted in Arabic: ‘Khallas Khallas… Which means stop. They did not want to waste more ammunition on the dog. Then it was silent.”

Itay placed his hand tightly onto the door handle of the bomb shelter while silently praying the Shema. This agonizing terror went on for 30 minutes.

They struggled with me. They kept trying to pull the handle down, and with my strength and the help of God, I kept pushing the handle up.

“We heard the terrorists breaking everything inside, windows, glass… Then they started to try to open the door. They struggled with me. They kept trying to pull the handle down, and with my strength and the help of God, I kept pushing the handle up.”

Moran was sitting on the bed with the two children holding her tightly. Then the electricity went out.

After a few minutes of tugging on the door handle, the terrorists gave up. They took tires, set them aflame, and threw them into the vent of the bomb shelter. “I took out my telephone and used the light to see what was going on. I realized then that smoke was entering the bomb shelter. Almost immediately, the dark smoke began to fill the room.”

Trapped

“I told my wife that we have to surrender. I told her we must put our hands up, and we had no choice but to open the door. I went to open the door but could not get it open. They had broken the handle on the other side in order to trap us.”

When Itay and his family were unable to surrender through the door, there was only one other way out. Through the window.

“I was so scared. I just knew that the moment I opened the window, I was going to get a bullet to my head. I knew it was the end, but we had no choice. We could not breathe anymore. This was the only option.”

Miraculously, the moment Itay opened the window, there was no one in sight. He jumped out first and then Moran handed him the two children.

“She gave me the kids, and I put them down underneath the small palm tree that we have in our garden. I just put them there because it was the closest place next to me. My wife came out, we closed the window, and sat under the palm tree and the branches. We each had a child on our lap.” The tree was slightly bare, but Itay pulled whatever branches were left towards him and they sat there for five, excruciatingly long hours which felt like an eternity.

The terrorists stood 30 centimeters from my body. His leg was right next to me. I have no clue how they passed by several times and didn’t see us.

Within minutes of their escape from their house, Itay’s property was filled with Hamas terrorists and Gazan civilians alike. “We watched the Gazans go inside our home and take everything. These were the same civilians our neighbors had driven to and from the hospital in order to provide surgeries for their children.” They watched this in silence, as they could not move or breathe audibly lest they be discovered.

“The terrorists stood 30 centimeters from my body. His leg was right next to me. I have no clue how they passed by several times and didn’t see us. This is surely a miracle from God. Nothing else.”

Itay kept praying, “Give me the strength, God, just a little more. Don’t leave me alone, don’t leave me alone.”

At one point, Moran signaled to Itay that they should run towards a bamboo grove since those trees were taller. Itay reasoned, “Listen, there are dozens of terrorists in front of us and for some reason they don’t see us. Something is hiding us, and we can’t move.” He later reflected, “Miracles are hard to grasp—I still do not fully grasp it, and I was the one who experienced it. The terrorists did not just pass once…they passed by us numerous times.”

Moran and Itay hiding

They carried on like this for several more hours. Eventually, the family stopped hearing screaming in Arabic and only heard distant gunfire. They understood from this that the terrorists had moved further away.

The surrounding smoke was building up, and Itay realized that they had to finally leave their hiding spot.

“We held the children, and checked that the area was free and clear. We started to run, and noticed there were terrorists on the roof, shooting at people. Moran took a left turn and then froze out of fear. I started to yell at her to keep moving, and the terrorists must have heard me because they started to shoot at us. We both ran and heard the bullets getting closer and closer. I could hear it in my ears, and I understood we were being chased.”

Itay found some branches on the ground and started to gather them together to make a mound. They dove underneath the pile and hid silently for another five hours, until nightfall.

Up until that point, the family had not eaten a thing, did not have anything to drink, nor had they relieved themselves during the entire ordeal. Their young, 4-year-old twins cooperated every step up the way and did not make a sound or voice any complaint.

“I didn’t tell the children anything. They cooperated because they understood the situation. They saw the fear in our eyes. They went 14 hours without drinking or eating and in complete silence all 14 hours. My kids typically have a lot of energy, especially my daughter. This was another miracle.”

The “Jeep” that God Sent

The biggest miracle of all took place when darkness fell and Itay got up to relieve himself.

“I was standing up in front of a tree and looked towards the side. I saw the red lights of a Jeep. I thought it was a Hamas Jeep. All these thoughts were racing through my mind, and I just knew I was going to die. When the Jeep shone its lights on me, I knew we had been caught.

“I started to hear voices, but as they came closer, I heard Hebrew. It was Israeli soldiers. I shouted, ‘Soldier!’”

“Who is this?” they demanded.

“I told him, ‘I am a father with my kids. Please help us!’” They were in safe hands now. Finally.

The soldiers proceeded to drive them back towards their Kibbutz. They saw multitudes of dead bodies of their friends and of terrorists.

This is a video of their burnt house:

Itay and his family also drove by Moran's parents’ home and they tragically saw that it was burnt. When Moran's parents did not pick up the phone they understood the agonizing reality of their death. It was confirmed ten days later.

“The soldiers even took us through where the Nova party took place, and we saw the road filled with bodies. There were hundreds of kids lying all over, burnt. No one can forget what they did to us that day.”

Months later, the soldier that rescued Itay asked him, “In the end, how did you find us? We were on a secret mission, trying to be undetectable.”

Itay responded that it was the red lights from the Jeep.

“What Jeep?” he asked. “We arrived by helicopter and were completely clandestine.”

There was no Jeep. There were no lights. But Itay is still positive that he saw them.

“The power of the army is that they do everything hidden. You can tell me it’s mazal, mazal, mazal, but I’m telling you I saw red lights with my eyes. It was a revelation, more than just mazal. I saw something physical… I am certain it’s a miracle.”

Itay’s First Sukkah Turned Out to be his Ultimate Protection

Perhaps one of the most fascinating parts of the story is that this was the first Sukkot that Itay had ever built a sukkah.

“I wanted to build it with my bare hands. I did not want to buy a premade one. I wanted my children to see me building it, and ask me questions about Sukkot so that I could teach them.”

Itay had gathered planks of wood throughout the Kibbutz and built it himself. He then found a large palm tree in the entrance of the Kibbutz and cut branches for the roof.

There were a lot of gaps in the roof that needed covering. That’s when Itay noticed that he had a dwarfed palm tree in his courtyard. “I had never noticed it before. I cut the branches from it as well in order to fill in the gaps. That tree is the same tree that we hid behind. It was supposed to be more full, but because I cut branches from it for the sukkah, it was very sparse and bare. We did not have a choice and hid there anyway, but it still saved us.”

Itay is still processing the experience and doesn’t understand why he was spared while others weren’t. He wonders if the merit of making a sukkah enabled him to successfully hide amid the remaining branches of the palm tree.

“Not one souvenir is left of the house. The roof is also burnt, but the sukkah? Nothing happened to it. The flame stopped right at the connection between the house and the sukkah. I had never in my life built a sukkah before. I still do not fully understand it. I came in contact with death, but God had another plan for me, maybe some sort of purpose.

“It is impossible for me to say there is no God after what I saw. After I was saved ten times from death? It was only God. I want the world to understand that we have God, but we need to unite. We have two legs, a right leg and a left leg. If we do not all walk together, we will fall. God is here and helping us, but for Him to help us, we have to help each other. We have to understand that people can think differently and still get along together.”

A version of this article originally appeared in Ami Magazine.