Israelis, Palestinians recount the chaotic hours of Oct. 7 and its first sparks of war

From above, the Gaza Strip looked uncharacteristically calm as the Sentinel-2 Earth observation satellite – one of two that constantly orbit the planet, photographing each location every five days – passed over at 11:31 a.m. last Saturday.

But the nearby fields and kibbutzim of southern Israel were ablaze. At least 10 major fires were visible inside tiny Kibbutz Be’eri, a community of just over 1,000.

Three more blazes could be seen inside Kibbutz Re’im. The road in between Be’eri and Re’im, where the Supernova festival had been held, was a solid line of angry orange fire.

Open this photo in gallery:

If Yoav and Shelly Barel had turned left, instead of right, that morning when they sped away from the festival, they’d almost certainly be dead right now.

Mr. Barel says it was a split-second, almost accidental, decision to turn right on Route 232 and drive south, rather than north toward their home on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.

They had no way of knowing then that the section of Route 232 just to the north – between the music festival parking lot and the nearby Kibbutz Be’eri – would within hours be known across Israel as a place of death, where upward of 260 people were killed during last weekend’s Hamas rampage. Many of the victims were shot sitting in their cars, unable to move in the sudden traffic jam.

“We always think: ‘What if? What if?’ ” Ms. Barel said three days later, as the couple sat on the balcony of their apartment, while their two young children played inside.

“We try not to think about what would have happened, but it keeps coming back.”

Even before the expected ground campaign has begun, about 3,200 people have died, according to the Associated Press – 1,300 Israelis who were killed in the Hamas attack, and now roughly 1,900 Palestinians who have been killed during a week of intensive Israeli air strikes, as well as artillery and naval bombardments, on Gaza.

Here’s a snapshot of how the day it all began unfolded.

Gazan journalist Hasan Jaber had just completed dawn prayers at 6 a.m. Saturday when he heard the sounds of the first Hamas rockets being fired toward Israel. That’s not unusual in Gaza, but the roar created by the sheer number of rockets launched – Hamas says it fired thousands – was far louder than what Mr. Jaber had heard in the past.

He went to the window of his home to see a “huge number of rockets going to the east, towards the border.” The 59-year-old started scanning his mobile phone for news, and saw reports that Hamas had breached the Israeli-built border fence in multiple locations. “I didn’t believe it could happen one day. I was surprised. No one could imagine it.”

The Supernova music festival was an all-day, all-night rave that began on Friday, the last day of the week-long Jewish holiday of Sukkot, and continued into Saturday morning. The music was still playing, and many revellers were still inebriated, when war suddenly erupted around them.

Like most of the partygoers, Shelly and Yoav Barel had been awake for more than 30 hours when they were jolted by the sounds of the first missiles flying overhead. As with Mr. Jaber across the fence in Gaza – just a few kilometres away, but living in a very different reality – they couldn’t comprehend what they were seeing. “I knew what was happening, but I couldn’t believe it,” said Ms. Barel, a 45-year-old who has been selling jewellery at music festivals for almost two decades. “I looked up and the sky was black.”

She turned to Mr. Barel, who had served in the Israeli army, looking for an explanation. “How could you bring me here if the situation is tense like this?” she asked him angrily. But Mr. Barel, even though he keeps in touch with his ex-army colleagues on a WhatsApp group, was just as stunned. “No one knew,” he told her.

In a video that has since gone viral on the internet, a line of Hamas paragliders appears in the sky over the Supernova festival even as the young revellers obliviously keep dancing to the music.

Open this photo in gallery:

On Kibbutz Re’im, the closest clutch of homes to the festival site, 81-year-old Varda Harmati was sleeping peacefully. Most Saturday mornings – which are quiet on the kibbutz because many residents observe Shabbat – the retired factory worker would spend the day gossiping with the other women her age over coffee and cookies.

Her favourite topic was her seven grandchildren – usurped only in the past three months by the birth of her first great-granddaughter, Niv Ben Haim. Every Saturday, she would bake a loaf of challa bread using a recipe her granddaughter gave her, and send a photograph around to the rest of the family.

Her family says that’s how Varda Harmati wanted to spend every Saturday for the rest of her days. But she wouldn’t live to see another one.

The Barels didn’t see the Hamas paragliders, but they knew something was deeply wrong from the dark sky. The police were telling people to shelter in place, but Ms. Barel felt that was a bad idea. She told her husband to bring their SUV close to their jewellery stand while she rapidly packed their things. They hastily disassembled their jewellery stand and threw it in the back of their vehicle. Then they drove away – turning right, rather than left. “The people around us didn’t understand the situation. They were taking their time,” Mr. Barel recalled. “Most of them are dead because of that.”

In the aftermath, the Israeli military would recover about 260 bodies at the festival site. Many were either shot in their cars in the Kibbutz Re’im parking lot, or on the stretch of Route 232 leading north to Kibbutz Be’eri, where another 120 people were killed.

The Barels had only the faintest idea of the scope of what was happening. “I told her ‘Just close your eyes right now,’ ” Mr. Barel said, recalling how they sped past three bodies on the road that he described as “lacerated.” Ms. Barel looked away from that scene but couldn’t shake the fear that every car around them might be carrying militants hunting them down. She told her husband that fate would decide whether they lived or died. “I told him this is the time to say ‘I love you. ’”

Open this photo in gallery:

It was only at 8 a.m. that Hasan Jaber – as plugged-in as any journalist in Gaza – began to understand the magnitude of the Hamas assault on Israel. Photos were appearing on news websites and in his WhatsApp feed of Hamas fighters patrolling the streets of Israeli communities and taking hostages.

Mohammed Deif, the head of al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas (the organization also has a political wing that focuses on trying to govern Gaza), issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack. It was, he said, revenge for the “Zionist colonial occupation that occupied our Palestinian homeland and displaced our people, destroyed our towns and villages, committed hundreds of massacres against our people, killing children, women and elderly people and demolishing homes with their inhabitants inside in violation of all international norms, laws and human rights conventions.”

Human-rights conventions, it was by then already clear, were the last thing Hamas fighters were concerned about.

After two hours of driving, the Barels reached their home near Tel Aviv. Though they don’t often watch the news, this time they turned on their TV as soon as they got in the door.

It was clear that a bigger Hamas operation than usual was under way, but even Israel’s national news stations seemed slow to grasp what they had seen during their narrow escape from the Supernova festival.

“They thought it was way smaller, just here and there,” Mr. Barel said. But even at that early hour, it was clear Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad had taken hostages with them back to Gaza.

The number of hostages wasn’t yet clear, but Hamas has since claimed to have taken more than 100 Israeli and foreign citizens to Gaza. The Israeli military is still trying to determine an accurate number, but acknowledges it’s in the dozens.

“When Hamas had Gilad Shalit – one person – we had to exchange 1,000 terrorists for one person,” Mr. Barel said, referring to an Israeli soldier who was taken hostage by Hamas in 2006 after a cross-border raid. Mr. Shalit was released in 2011 in a deal that freed 1,027 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.

Ms. Barel interrupted her husband before he could finish his thought. “There’s no negotiations this time.”

Open this photo in gallery:

It had been four hours since the first Hamas fighters were reported to be inside the fence of Kibbutz Re’im, near the music festival site. And no one had heard from Varda Harmati.

At 10:35 a.m., Ms. Harmati’s granddaughter Noa sent a WhatsApp message to her cousin Itamar, who was also in Kibbutz Re’im, hiding in a shelter.

“Are you still in hiding?” Noa wrote. “Is grandma dead? Or you don’t know.”

“They shot grandma in the head,” Itamar replied. “In her home,” he added a minute later.

“Don’t leave the shelter,” Noa wrote back. “I’m begging you. Don’t leave. We’ll be ok.”

“I’m not leaving,” Itamar wrote. “There’s terrorists in the whole kibbutz.”

Shortly thereafter, Mr. Netanyahu made his first public statement about what was happening in the south of Israel. “Israel is at war,” he said. “This is not a so-called military operation, not another round of fighting, but war.”

By noon, Hasan Jaber understood that Hamas’s stunning attack was going to mean yet more punishment for the people of Gaza. For almost 20 years, Mr. Jaber has worked with Globe and Mail correspondents visiting Gaza. And over those two decades, there have been many, many battles between Israel and Hamas.

There were the two big Gaza wars, in 2009 and 2014, and many smaller clashes. Each time, Mr. Jaber would shelter with his family in the north of the strip, hoping the latest war would again pass them over. Each time, I’d send him messages trying to keep his spirits up, and he’d send me back updates from ground zero.

This time, he knew instinctively, it was going to be even worse than 2009′s Operation Cast Lead, the last time Israel reinvaded Gaza to try to stop Hamas rocket fire. Mr. Jaber headed to his brother’s house to again shelter with his family. “Waiting for Israel to respond, to kill people,” he wrote to me.

A few hours later, an Israeli airstrike crumpled the 14-storey Palestine Tower in the centre of Gaza City, destroying Mr. Jaber’s office inside.

Open this photo in gallery:

It wasn’t until Saturday evening that Israeli troops liberated Kibbutz Re’im, allowing Varda Harmati’s grandson to come out of his shelter. But there were still boobytraps everywhere, and it would be another 12 hours – Sunday morning – before the soldiers found Ms. Harmati’s body lying in her bed in the kibbutz she had called home for the past 60 years.

Her partner Boaz Brazilai, who lived separately in the kibbutz, was there beside her, having spent the night beside the dead body of the woman he cared about. “He was next to her for nearly 28 hours,” Ms. Harmati’s 22-year-old grandson Eyal recounted. “They were in terror. And it was just a complete mess. And it was just unbelievable that that’s happening inside our homes, inside our houses, to my own family, to our own nation.”

Eyal, a university student, said he’s spent much of his days since his grandmother died collecting food and other supplies for donation to the 360,000 Israeli reservists who have been mobilized over the past week.

If and when the expected ground invasion begins, Eyal’s uncle, as well as his brother-in-law, will be among those taking part. “If they would recruit me, I’d be the first to go,” Eyal said.

Alongside the groundswell of anger that has united Israelis since Saturday – even bringing Mr. Netanyahu and his bitter political rivals together in a newly formed emergency government – is the unsettling feeling that the country is no longer safe.

It’s not just the looming ground fight in Gaza, and the knowledge that many more people will die, or even the prospect that Iran and Hezbollah could choose this moment to escalate their own conflicts with Israel.

It’s that Israel’s vaunted military and intelligence services – who for decades have helped Israelis feel safe even as they live surrounded by forces that view them as the enemy – failed so spectacularly on Saturday morning.

“The catastrophic result – 50 years and one day after the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War – is a huge systemic failure on the part of the entire political and security leadership,” columnist Amos Harel wrote in Israel’s left-wing Haaretz newspaper. “These things will have to be clarified in depth only after the war ends.”

Shelly Barel said the most stunning moment for her came when, at the start of the Hamas assault on the music festival, she realized the police were just as confused and scared as she was. “They didn’t know what to do. Exactly like us. But we are not like them. They needed to protect us.”

In the aftermath, however, the Barels share the opinion of many Israelis: Punish Hamas first, deal with the internal problems – starting with Mr. Netanyahu’s leadership – later. A week after they attended a music festival themed around peace and love, they have no sympathy for the Gazans who are now suffering through an Israeli siege that has cut off the supply of gas, water and electricity to the strip.

“After what happened, we have very extreme opinions,” Mr. Barel said. His wife again finished the thought. “Everyone in Gaza has the potential to become a terrorist. It doesn’t matter if they’re Hamas or not.”

Open this photo in gallery:

In Gaza, Mr. Jaber says, there was brief moment of celebration on Saturday when it became clear that Hamas had hit Israel as hard – or even harder – than all the times that Israel had hit Gaza. “The majority of the people were happy – because this is the first time an Arab force was able to do the same thing,” he said.

But the new reality quickly sank in. Everyone in Gaza knows that what happens next is going to be brutal. It seems inevitable that many more Palestinians will die as Israel seeks to reassert its military dominance over Hamas, and to somehow stop this from happening again.

“It is only the beginning. After the fuel to the generator will stop, we will be isolated from the world. They will do massacres and kill hundreds and thousands of people, and no one will stop this from happening,” Mr. Jaber said in a despondent message on Thursday as Israel continued to mass troops and military equipment around the strip. “The circle of fire has begun to get wider and wider.”

Maps: The Israel-Hamas war at a glance

The Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million people live on about 365 square kilometres, about the same amount of land as Gatineau Park in the Greater Ottawa Area. From there, Hamas has launched rockets deep into Israeli territory, though Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system is able to intercept many of these. In Oct. 7′s attacks, fighters from Gaza reached nearby Israeli communities such as Re’im and Be’eri, killing many people and taking some as hostages.

LEBANON

WEST

BANK

Jerusalem

GAZA

STRIP

ISRAEL

EGYPT

JORDAN

50 KM

Population density

Low

Dense

Ashkelon

Closed

military

zone

Military base

Zikim

Border crossing

ISRAEL

Sderot

GAZA STRIP

Gaza City

Nahal Oz

Israeli-ordered

evacuation zone

Be’eri

Wadi

Gaza

Refugee

camps

Re’im

Kisufim

Khan Younis

Sufa

Rafah

North

EGYPT

5 KM

Young population

Per cent, 2020 estimates for age brackets

0 to 14

15 to 24

25 and older

22%

Gaza Strip

West Bank

Israel

25%

50%

MURAT YÜKSELIR AND JOHN SOPINSKI / THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: OPENSTREETMAPS; GRAPHIC NEWS; european commission; United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs; REUTERS

LEBANON

WEST

BANK

Jerusalem

GAZA

STRIP

ISRAEL

EGYPT

JORDAN

50 KM

Population density

Low

Dense

Ashkelon

Closed

military

zone

Military base

Zikim

Border crossing

ISRAEL

Sderot

GAZA STRIP

Gaza City

Nahal Oz

Israeli-ordered

evacuation zone

Be’eri

Wadi

Gaza

Refugee

camps

Re’im

Kisufim

Khan Younis

Sufa

Rafah

North

EGYPT

5 KM

Young population

Per cent, 2020 estimates for age brackets

0 to 14

15 to 24

25 and older

22%

Gaza Strip

West Bank

Israel

25%

50%

MURAT YÜKSELIR AND JOHN SOPINSKI / THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: OPENSTREETMAPS; GRAPHIC NEWS; european commission; United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs; REUTERS

Population density

Low

Dense

Ashkelon

LEBANON

Closed

military

zone

Military base

WEST

BANK

Zikim

Jerusalem

GAZA

STRIP

Border crossing

ISRAEL

Sderot

GAZA STRIP

ISRAEL

EGYPT

JORDAN

50 KM

Gaza City

Nahal Oz

Israeli-ordered

evacuation zone

Be’eri

Wadi Gaza

Ofakim

Refugee

camps

Re’im

Kisufim

Magen

Khan Younis

Sufa

Rafah

Young population

Per cent, 2020 estimates for age brackets

0 to 14

15 to 24

25 and older

22%

Gaza Strip

West Bank

North

EGYPT

Israel

5 KM

25%

50%

MURAT YÜKSELIR AND JOHN SOPINSKI / THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: OPENSTREETMAPS; GRAPHIC NEWS; european commission; United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs; REUTERS

Range of Hamas’s rockets

Palestinian militants in Gaza have acquired long-range missiles that reach beyond Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, putting as many as five million of Israel’s eight million citizens at risk

LEBANON

GOLAN

HEIGHTS

Haifa

ISRAEL

WEST

BANK

Tel Aviv

JORDAN

Jerusalem

Ashdod

GAZA

STRIP

Hebron

Gaza

City

1

Be’er-Sheva

2

EGYPT

Qassam

15km

1

Grad

20km

2

50 KM

MURAT YÜkselir and john sopinski / THE GLOBE AND MAIL, Sources: graphic news; Israel Missile Defense Association; GLoBAl Security; Wire agencies

Range of Hamas’s rockets

Palestinian militants in Gaza have acquired long-range missiles that reach beyond Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, putting as many as five million of Israel’s eight million citizens at risk

LEBANON

GOLAN

HEIGHTS

Haifa

ISRAEL

WEST

BANK

Tel Aviv

JORDAN

Jerusalem

Ashdod

GAZA

STRIP

Hebron

Gaza

City

1

Be’er-Sheva

2

EGYPT

Qassam

15km

1

Grad

20km

2

50 KM

MURAT YÜkselir and john sopinski / THE GLOBE AND MAIL, Sources: graphic news; Israel Missile Defense Association; GLoBAl Security; Wire agencies

Range of Hamas’s rockets

Palestinian militants in Gaza have acquired long-range missiles that reach beyond Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, putting as many as five million of Israel’s eight million citizens at risk

LEBANON

GOLAN

HEIGHTS

Haifa

ISRAEL

WEST

BANK

Tel Aviv

Jerusalem

Ashdod

GAZA

STRIP

Hebron

Gaza

City

JORDAN

Be’er-Sheva

EGYPT

50 KM

MURAT YÜkselir and john sopinski / THE GLOBE AND MAIL, Sources: graphic news; Israel Missile Defense Association; GLoBAl Security; Wire agencies

Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system

Designed to intercept short-range rockets fired from up to 70 km away, as well as mortars, artillery shells and drones, Iron Dome consists of radar, a control centre and launchers.

TAMIR INTERCEPTOR

Length: 3 m

Weight: 90 kg

Unit cost: $80,000

IRON DOME

System developed by state-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. Batteries currently deployed at 10 sites in Israel

Target

Target

3

3

3

1

2

1

Radar: Can detect up to 1,000 separate targets

2

Control centre: Assesses threat – ignores rockets

aimed at unpopulated areas

3

Launchers: Can fire 20 missiles each

SOURCE: GRAPHIC NEWS

Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system

Designed to intercept short-range rockets fired from up to 70 km away, as well as mortars, artillery shells and drones, Iron Dome consists of radar, a control centre and launchers.

TAMIR INTERCEPTOR

Length: 3 m

Weight: 90 kg

Unit cost: $80,000

IRON DOME

System developed by state-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. Batteries currently deployed at 10 sites in Israel

Targets

3

3

3

1

2

1

Radar: Can detect up to 1,000 separate targets

2

Control centre: Assesses threat – ignores rockets

aimed at unpopulated areas

3

Launchers: Can fire 20 missiles each

SOURCE: GRAPHIC NEWS

Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system

Designed to intercept short-range rockets fired from up to 70 km away, as well as mortars, artillery shells and drones, Iron Dome consists of radar, a control centre and launchers.

TAMIR INTERCEPTOR

IRON DOME

System developed by state-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. Batteries currently deployed at 10 sites in Israel

Unit cost: $80,000

Weight: 90 kg

Length: 3 m

Targets

Radar: Can detect up to

1,000 separate targets

1

Control centre:

Assesses threat –

ignores rockets aimed

at unpopulated areas

2

3

Launchers: Can fire

20 missiles each

3

3

3

1

2

SOURCE: GRAPHIC NEWS

Israel-Hamas war: More from our foreign correspondents

Israeli evacuation order of 1.1 million in northern Gaza will cause chaos and calamity, humanitarian workers say

Blinken calls on Israel to minimize civilian deaths ahead of expected ground invasion of Gaza

Israelis near Lebanon border fear a widening war if Hezbollah attacks

Loved ones recount horrifying murder of Canadian Adi Vital-Kaploun who was shot by Hamas in front of children