Israeli town of Ofakim cleared of terrorists, but blood and shock remain
Ofakim resident Shuki Yosef demonstrates how he blocked a shelter door with the piece of a bicycle from terrorists. Photo by Ilan Assayag/Haaretz
This article originally appeared on Haaretz, and was reprinted here with permission. Sign up here to get Haaretz’s free Daily Brief newsletter delivered to your inbox.
The fighting in the southern town of Ofakim, which a group of Hamas terrorists from Gaza infiltrated on Saturday, ended very early Sunday morning, but from time to time rumors spread about other terrorists hiding in the city, prompting the residents to be told to hole themselves up inside. The city, which is about 18 kilometers (11 miles) from the Gaza border, was quiet on Sunday, but most of its residents were still shuttered inside their homes in fear.
In the Mishor Hagefen neighborhood, where most of the combat took place, one of the two vehicles in which the terrorists rode to the town of 34,000 was either torched or somehow caught fire. A large column of smoke rose from the vehicle, and there were intermittent explosions, probably from ammunition left inside. Police kept the public away. On a nearby street, city employees tried to fix a fire pipe that a bullet had burst. Throughout the neighborhood, there were hundreds of bullet shells scattered around, along with medical equipment, pock marks from bullets – and pools of blood. Most pervasive was the strong smell of blood.
The fighting in the city began around 7 A.M. Saturday, about half an hour after Hamas launched an initial rocket barrage on Israel. “I saw the terrorists unloading 100 meters (325 feet) from the house. They had a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and seemed to know where they were going. And instead of entering our neighborhood, where the homes have shelters, they went to the old neighborhood, where people have to go to communal shelters. They shot them on the way to the shelters,” city resident Avihai Avilahan recounted.
Shuki Yosef, 63, left home and went to a small public shelter. “We heard explosions. The kids said maybe it was fireworks. All of a sudden, I saw several terrorists. The neighbor who lives here shot him. [The terrorist] remained lying here for hours.” Yosef, along with three other neighbors, had run through a hail of bullets to get into the shelter. “We heard more explosions and they banged on the door and yelled ‘Jew, Jew, open the door’ in Arabic.”
Yosef held the door handle shut by jamming a broken bicycle onto it, preventing the terrorists from getting inside. “I saw the handle move but realized that I didn’t have to apply force, but just hold it. I was frightened and told everyone to be quiet so they wouldn’t hear us. I never dreamed that I would be in such a situation. And we couldn’t call the police. There was no answer,” Yosef said.
The terrorists apparently gave up on breaking in and moved onto a nearby home, that of David and Rachel Edry. They broke into the house and held the couple hostage for 20 hours. At 3 A.M. on Sunday, a Border Police counterterrorism team managed to rescue the couple alive.
Three of the policemen were wounded in the raid, one moderately and two lightly. Five terrorists were killed in the house. Five others were killed elsewhere in Ofakim. At this writing, the total number of casualties among Ofakim’s residents remained uncertain.
On a visit Sunday morning to the Edry’s home, the signs of the battle were everywhere. The yard was full of blood, including pools of blood, and there were also broken pieces of furniture, along with a pronounced smell of blood.
A man named Gilad Asulin showed up at the home in the morning with a truck and volunteered to help clear the terrorists’ bodies. He went around Ofakim from place to place loading bodies wrapped in plastic sheeting onto the vehicle. Police officers informed him of another body on a nearby street.
A 27 year-old neighbor who asked not to be identified by name was witness to the battle against the terrorists. “There were sirens and I saw that the older neighbors couldn’t get into the shelter because it was locked. One of them gave me a disc saw and I began cutting the lock. While I was doing that, I heard gunfire. They began shooting at me, but I managed to hide. They shot my neighbor, an older man, right near me. I made it home, locked the doors, pulled down the blinds and asked the kids to hunker down below the height of the windows.”
“I had had a feeling that this would happen someday,” Avihalan, the man who had seen the terrorists arrive in town, said. “You see what’s happening in the country. You see that nothing’s working.”
They waited four hours without getting any information about what was happening, he added. “We felt like we were left to the mercy of God alone, that no one could help us. I barricaded myself here with a gun, protecting my family. I said [to myself] I had two ammunition clips. That’s all there was.”
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