War Story

I was at Nova. My husband Yoav and I opened our booth there and were celebrating our seventh wedding anniversary. The venue held the Unity Festival the night before, so we had gone there with our booth and continued into the Nova Festival. We hadn't slept in about 30 hours at that point. In the early hours of the morning, we started seeing volleys of rockets in the sky with strong booms in an insane amount, literally a rain of volleys, I haven't watched or been connected to the news for years, and I didn't understand why Yoav didn't tell me that there were tensions in the south. Only later did I understand everyone had been caught by surprise. I was terrified, it was like a horror movie. We sat on the floor waiting for it to end, but it never did. I don't know how long we had been sitting there when I suddenly I started panicking that a rocket was going to fall here. I was sure a rocket would hit us out here in the open. I told Yoav that we need to fold up the booth and get out of there now. We folded up the booth in a whirlwind and packed everything into the car, jewelry, stands, clothes that we shoved into bags. A booth we usually fold up in half an hour was folded in less than 10 minutes. I stuffed myself into the front passenger seat which we had also packed with equipment and we left 5 minutes before the terrorists entered the party area. There was an insane traffic jam towards Be'eri Kibbutz, as if the entire party was heading there. We made the decision to turn right instead and in retrospect it saved our lives. Ten minutes later, terrorists came from the direction of Be'eri and massacred everyone stuck in the traffic jam. I don't know why we made that decision, maybe it was the feeling that we needed to keep moving. We kept driving until we reached an area with cars stopped on both sides of the road and people lying on the ground not moving. Yoav told me to close my eyes and he made a sharp U-turn and we flew out of there. I thought it was a car accident because of the speed everyone was driving because of the rocket volleys, but Yoav told me it wassomething much more serious. Two minutes later a message was sent to his army Whatsapp group that there was an infiltration of terrorists and it became clear that now we had to run away from terrorists. The Waze driving app wasn't working, so we drove according to the signs and headed towards Ofakim. The road was unclear and the area was completely open. The barrages continued non-stop and the explosions became stronger. One explosion almost flipped our car over. We were flying down the road at 150 km/h, gas pedal down to the floor, only slowing for curves. Every car behind us, I was afraid was a terrorist. Every car that passed us, I was afraid I would be shot through the window. In the end, we reached populated areas and returned home. We still can't believe the magnitude of everything and how much intuition and luck were with us yesterday. I don't want to think about what would have happened, about what if, but at the same time I can't stop thinking about it. How would our children grow up without us if we had been kidnapped or killed? The night of the party, Yoav and I talked about death, and how it wasn't the end and how man goes through reincarnations. Out in the open field I reminded him of this, and asked if it was time to say I love you. But we didn't. When we got home and started hearing about the kidnapped and dead, we were shocked. So many acquaintances, friends, girls who had shopped at the booth the night before, were missing, kidnapped or murdered. How many obituaries will be on Facebook now? How many funerals and shivas will we attend? We survived the massacre, but the trauma will stay with us forever.