When 23-year-old Tamar Kam heard gunshots adopted by a person talking Hebrew, she thought it was the Israel Defense Forces arriving to save lots of her.
As a substitute, Kam—who was hiding in a bathe after climbing via the window of a stranger’s dwelling—had simply listened to her boyfriend being murdered.
The younger couple had been within the desert space close to the Gaza border final weekend for the Supernova Competition, an all-night rave meant to have a good time the vacation of Sukkot. That they had traveled to the small southern Israeli suburb of Kibbutz Re’im, roughly a 90-minute drive south from their hometown of Petah Tikvah, anticipating to let free. However when Hamas militants attacked the gathering simply after 6 a.m. on Saturday, slaughtering some 260 revelers, the 2 fled for his or her lives.
“We had deliberate to go to a celebration,” Kam informed The Each day Beast by telephone from her hospital mattress in Be’er Sheva, the place she is recovering from a gunshot wound. “We didn’t think about one thing like this.”
Whereas cross-border rocket fireplace rained down, and armed fighters sprayed the group of three,500 younger Israelis with computerized weapons, Kam and her boyfriend ran towards a close-by village. Alongside the best way, they occurred upon an out of doors bunker the place about 50 others had been additionally hiding, and rapidly ducked in to hitch them. Nevertheless, the attackers quickly started lobbing grenades into the construction, killing a number of folks, Kam stated Thursday.
Israeli troopers examine the charred stays of automobiles deserted in a car parking zone close to final weekend’s Supernova Competition.
Ronen Zvulun/Reuters
Terrified, Kam and her boyfriend climbed over a sequence of our bodies and set off as soon as once more in the hunt for security. The pair ran till they noticed a home, however discovered the entrance door locked so that they climbed inside via an open window and located the place empty. Kam ran to the lavatory, locked the door, and holed up within the bathe stall. As soon as there, her boyfriend grabbed a kitchen knife and positioned himself close to the entrance of the home, ready to do his greatest in defending the 2 of them towards any militants going door-to-door.
A short while later, from her hiding spot within the bathe, Kam heard a sudden burst of exercise and two fast gunshots. Then, a voice saying one thing in Hebrew. It sounded to Kam as if rescuers had lastly arrived, she stated, so she emerged from the lavatory, shaken however nonetheless respiration, grateful that she and her boyfriend had been spared. And that’s when she was shot within the stomach.
“I believed it was troopers coming to rescue us, but it surely was a terrorist talking Hebrew,” Kam recalled as her mom, Limor, sat at her bedside. “After I got here out of the bathe, he shot me.”
Kam crumpled to the ground, bleeding profusely, and the attackers left her for lifeless, she stated. When safety forces from close by Kibbutz Alumim finally arrived, two troopers burst inside the home and located Kam severely wounded and her boyfriend lifeless. Nevertheless, it was nonetheless too harmful to go exterior. Whereas they waited, Kam stated the household that lived there emerged from their very own hiding spot within the dwelling’s built-in shelter, Kam and her boyfriend having taken the bullets in any other case supposed for them.
Israeli volunteers serving free meals to first responders, survivors of final weekend’s terror assault, and their households, exterior the Soroka Medical Middle in Be’er Sheva.
Courtesy Rotem Omega
Some 5 hours handed earlier than the troopers had been capable of get Kam to the hospital. Throughout the excruciating wait, her boyfriend’s dad and mom referred to as her telephone to ensure all the pieces was OK. When she informed them that their son had been shot lifeless, she stated they began screaming.
As soon as it appeared secure sufficient to go away, Kam and the 2 troopers dodged continuous volleys of gunfire till the troopers managed to discover a automotive parked subsequent to a different home—Kam stated she doesn’t keep in mind the exact chain of occasions—and drove her to the Soroka Medical Middle. The power, which is affiliated with Ben-Gurion College of the Negev and sits about 25 miles from the Gaza border, received some 700 victims that day.
Distraught as she is, Limor Kam stated she felt “fortunate” her daughter survived. On the identical time, the lack of Kam’s boyfriend has hit her notably onerous.
“I cherished him a lot,” she informed The Each day Beast. “There aren’t any phrases to elucidate. These had been younger children, younger folks. It was a bloodbath.”
As one festival-goer told the Associated Press, “I can’t even clarify the vitality [the attackers] had. It was so clear they didn’t see us as human beings. They checked out us with pure, pure hate.”
On Thursday, Kam continued her restoration amongst a whole bunch of different wounded Israelis at Soroka. Outdoors, a violinist stuffed the air with tune as a barber gave free haircuts to traumatized first responders, survivors, and their households. A clutch of well-known Israeli actors confirmed up in Kam’s room to carry her spirits, taking photographs and signing autographs.
After which, earlier than anybody might develop into too complacent, the air raid sirens went off.
Get the Daily Beast’s biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now.
Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast’s unmatched reporting. Subscribe now.
