Eden is 20 years old.
She works in Human Resources in the IDF.
On October 7th she woke up in her base to the sound of a rocket siren.
She went to the bomb shelter wearing her pyjamas and flip flops on her feet.
She sheltered there with six others.
But then they heard gunshots.
They knew something wasn’t right and that they weren’t safe in the shelter.
They decided to run for their command centre - which also serves as a safe room.
They fled the bomb shelter and were met with gunfire from behind.
As Eden ran in her pyjamas, her flip flops came off.
The first bullet went in her left leg.
She continued to run - the adrenalin carrying her on.
She couldn’t see what happened to anyone else in the chaos.
She now knows two people were killed in that volley of fire.
She also knows that three escapees went to their bedroom to hide.
One was shot in the stomach.
Eden continued to run barefoot as bullets rang out.
She arrived outside the command centre.
There are two security doors.
She opened the first door with the code.
The second door wouldn’t open for her.
Other escapees had already arrived and were inside the room.
Eden believed the terrorists were behind her and told those hiding in the room.
They shouted through the door. They told her to run around the building to the back door.
Eden believed if she attempted to get to the back door she would die. She also believed if she stayed she would die.
She ran to the back door.
The soldiers let her in.
They tried to bandage her wound.
There were six people in the room.
There were only two guns.
Eden was 2nd in command.
And then the terrorists tried to break in.
For forty minutes.
For forty minutes they threw grenades against the door, trying to break in so they could kill the people inside.
Though shot in the leg, Eden she thought she’d be ok in the safe room.
There were two doors between them and the terrorists.
The terrorists used an RPG and broke through the first door.
The terrorists started throwing grenades at the second door.
Eden phoned her boyfriend and family and said her goodbyes. She thanked them for everything they’d done for her and asked them to pray.
Eden then received a message on her phone from a friend.
She opened it.
Eden glanced at the photo that downloaded before realising what it was and holding the phone away from herself.
It was a photo of a dead friend outside.
The terrorists had stolen the phone of a soldier they had killed - taken a photo of his corpse - and then sent the photo to Eden inside the room they were breaking into. Eden later discovered the terrorists had also sent the photo to the boy’s mother and uploaded it to his instagram page for his followers to see. In the photo they had broken in his face and teeth.
Eden realised the gravity of the situation. The terrorists had come to kill.
The terrorists continued to throw grenades at the last door.
Eden and her friends pointed their two guns at the door and waited.
Eden sent one last voice message to her father. In it you can hear the gunshots and the grenade that blew open the final door.
There was no more contact after that.
The first terrorists stormed in.
Eden waited to die. She accepted death and waited.
Those soldiers holding the guns managed to shoot two terrorists.
And then came in the grenade.
After the grenade came the gun fire.
For five minutes.
Eden was hit by several bullets.
Each bullet going into her felt like a boom in her body.
She laid down quietly and pretended to be dead.
With the bullets inside her she prayed not to be kidnapped.
After silence came she heard them talking in arabic.
They began rifling through people’s pockets and stealing phones.
Then they fired more bullets into Eden and the others on the floor in darkness.
She received the bullets in silence.
Then they left.
She waited several minutes.
This is how the dead feel, she thought.
She felt someone’s breath on her arm.
There was another survivor.
They had received one bullet.
Eden was happy she wasn’t alone.
They held hands and laid in the darkness.
All the while in the distance they could hear gunshots.
They held hands for four hours.
One of Eden’s other friends was dead and bleeding on her.
Eden pushed their body off.
There was blood everywhere in the room.
She didn’t know whose blood belonged to who.
Eden touched her body to find her wounds.
She and the other survivor took a shirt to try to make a dressing.
Eden wanted to escape but couldn’t move.
She tried to phone for help but the terrorists had destroyed the antenna.
So she just laid there in the dark feeling the bodies of her dead friends against her.
She thought of her family.
She thought she has to stay alive.
She wanted to sleep.
Her friend woke her up every time she drifted into unconsciousness.
After four hours of lying in dark like this they heard Hebrew voices.
They were scared it could be a trick.
Some people entered the room.
Eden felt confident it was the IDF.
She raised her hand out of the pile of bodies.
She was seen.
Eden was taken to a hospital.
She has now been in hospital for a month.
She had four hours of surgery the first day.
She has had five surgeries altogether.
She had 12 bullets enter her in total.
No one can tell Eden how long she’ll be in hospital.
She can’t stand.
She feels ok, relative to what she has experienced.
It takes her time to sleep.
Her story on October 7th began with a siren.
She gets anxiety when she hears sirens.
There are a lot of sirens in Israel because their neighbours frequently try to kill them.
END
She is astounding. Well done for sharing the horrors. We must not forget.
Eden was right about the photo. Both your expressions are so beautiful -and so full of life! May all the wounded have a complete and speedy recovery of body and soul