Jewish survivor of Hamas Oct. 7 terror attack is 'still reeling,' pleads for peace in Israel
Eden Gefner said it must have been a miracle, surviving the Oct. 7th attack — hearing Hamas gunfire break through their front door as she and others hid in their safe room, tensely listening as Hamas terrorists rummaged through their home.
Said Gefner, "As the minutes passed by, we started to understand that there [were] so many terrorists in the kibbutz, because you [could] see … people writing in the community WhatsApp group."
People were saying, "I can hear them screaming, ‘Kill the Jews!’" she said.
Her mind is still reeling from it to this day, she said.
"I can't stop thinking that on Saturday morning, I didn't do anything. I only woke up as a Jew. So I really felt like [we were] in the Holocaust."
Gefner, 28, was born and raised in Kibbutz Re'im in Israel.
This is just three miles from the border with Gaza — a stone's throw from where the Supernova Sukkot music festival took place. It is where Hamas killed 364 civilians on Oct. 7.
That day, in an instant, she went from being a normal millennial thinking about her future to believing she was now in the Holocaust — that she and her family would die just for being Jews.
She said she now thought, "I didn't graduate. I didn't get married. I didn't accomplish all my dreams. This is it."
On a recent episode of "Lighthouse Faith" podcast recorded in East Hampton, New York, Gefner talked just before she told her story of survival to a small group at Chabad of the Hamptons.
It's part of the Faces of October 7th Project, which aims to "humanize the consequences of terrorism and challenge the support that terrorist organizations like Hamas have garnered, particularly among young people."
Gefner recounted how her mother used to talk about the beauty of Gaza.
"My parents have [these] amazing, nostalgic stories about back then, when they went to Gaza, and they were in the market over there, went to the beach in Gaza ... which is super beautiful."
For years, her mother told her that nothing would happen, that they would be in peace. Gefner lived with the sincere belief that Jews and Palestinians could exist together.
Over the years, Gefner, who's studying management and psychology at Reichman University in Herzliya near Tel Aviv, said there's been an escalation of aggression by Hamas.
"I remember in 2014, Hamas was, I would say, popping out from these tunnels in some kibbutzim."
Still, she thought of these things as normal occurrences of microaggressions — until the morning of Oct. 7, 2023.
Gefner and her parents and boyfriend woke up to the sound of civil defense sirens ... not unusual. But then the sirens sounded for a second time ... and then a third.
The group turned on the TV to learn that Hamas had launched a major attack on the area and were shooting civilians and taking hostages.
The family fled to the safe room. But the rooms don't have locks by design in case of fire.
Gefner said she remembered that her grandmother, who survived the Holocaust in Europe, always told them the attic was their safe place against Nazis.
The family went to head to the attic — yet her father decided he would not.
So the decision was made that if they were going to die, they would die together. They returned to the safe room.
Soon they heard gunfire close to their home. Gefner recorded on her phone the rapid-fire sounds of an automatic rifle close by. Because of her stint in the Israeli army, she knew these were Hamas weapons — not the IDF.
There was a knock on their glass front door, then another knock — then gunfire.
Gefner said, "We [could] hear ... the door shattering into a million pieces. And like a horror movie when everything became quiet — you can only hear the steps when he tried to look for us."
She said her father and her boyfriend held onto the door knob with all their strength, knowing it was a matter of life or death.
They'd already gotten a text from a neighbor who said their other neighbor was shot and killed in front of his young children.
"For me and my family, it was the … scariest moment. Because actually the devil was inside our whole house, in our home. And my father began to say goodbye to my mom."
Gefner said she looked at her boyfriend. She recalled that his eyes said, "How are we going to survive it?"
The terrorist was inside their home. "All of a sudden, we saw the door[knob] going down — like [he was trying] to open the door. But then my father and my boyfriend tried to prevent him. And we [had] this kind of battle of the door."
For several minutes, it was a tug of war ... literally.
Then more silence.
Endless silence.
For 30 hours, the family remained in the safe room, unsure of what they would find.
Was there a Hamas terrorist waiting for them to emerge? Would the terrorist try to shoot through the safe room? Maybe he was in the attic; maybe he was starting a fire to burn the house down. But nothing.
Gefner said, "For me, it was a miracle."
In other kibbutzin, Hamas were not so easy on safe-room doors.
Gefner said she has classmates from high school who are now orphans because Hamas used explosives and shot through doors.
"I can't understand," she said today. "He [the Hamas terrorist] knew that we [were] in the home because he tried to open the door, and he met our resistance from the other side. So he knew that we [were] inside … I'm still thinking about it now. Why did he give up?"
It remains a mystery — for which Gefner said she is grateful to this day.
In the months since Oct. 7, 2023, Gefner faced the political fallout as Israel became immersed in a long-term offensive against Hamas in Gaza.
Her boyfriend served for three months in the military through November. He told her of the network of tunnels built by Hamas in Gaza — and of the hideouts and offices built beneath schools and hospitals.
American politicians, too, have been on the offensive in support of Israel against a rising tide of anger over the thousands of Palestinians in Gaza who have been killed in the campaign to root out Hamas.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., emphasized recently on "Fox & Friends" that the target is not civilians, but Hamas.
"It's very simple," said Rubio. "Israel has to destroy Hamas. Hamas has basically defined victory as survival. The fact that they are still in place and can hold press conferences and put out statements — that is victory for Hamas."
Gefner said she feels frustrated by the rise of antisemitism and by the protests on college campuses and in city streets in America.
"I wish that all the hate that they have toward the Jewish people and toward Israel — [that] they just take it to Hamas," she said.
It is Hamas, she said, that has the Palestinians in chains — not Israel, not the Jews.
"They need to shout, ‘Free Palestinians from Hamas,’ not ‘free from Israel.’ Hamas is holding Palestine — not us," she said.
But as a child of Israel who has never known a time when Israel did not exist, she is pleading not only for her future — but for the Palestinians' future as well.
"We have one Earth," said Hefner.
"I will say one space. And we all need to understand how we could live together."
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