Woman Recalls How She Escaped Hamas Attack Dodging Bullets

Amid the Israel-Hamas war, a British-Israeli woman said that she had to escape "through open fields and past army forces" as there was an ongoing gun battle in Yated, Israel. At the same time, her son was heading for the front line to join Israeli soldiers, as per a report in The Times. Following a complete evacuation, Yated is currently one of several communities designated as a closed military zone. Dozens of people are reported missing or presumed dead.

Debby Shharon, a British national with four children, sought refuge in their family's safe house when gunfire erupted in their town, a settlement of 120 households situated approximately 2.5 miles from the Gaza border. She said that she was crammed with her husband, their daughter and son-in-law, their autistic son, and three grandkids under the age of eleven, in a three-by-two-metre room for roughly 36 hours. They had no idea what was going on outside of their house in southern Israel. They were also without electricity and their phone batteries were running low hours into the crisis.

"It was in those hours that I really understood the mentality my English mother had raised us with after having grown up during the Second World War and how she taught us to behave in emergencies," Ms Sharon said. She went on to say that the situation appeared "apocalyptic" and people were running all around. 

"Nothing could have prepared us for this. The idea of 'keeping our chin up' and staying positive in the midst of the chaos and uncertainty; I could see it all taking place in those moments. I felt like I was playing out all those stories my mother had told me growing up. Trying to keep the kids calm, to stop them screaming, to stop them leaving, all this while we are together in a safe room, which was designed to keep us safe from rockets, not from terrorists, so it didn't even lock from the inside," she told the outlet.

According to the woman, she has never seen this kind of conflict even though she has been living in Israel since the age of five. "It sounds crazy to say it but the rocket attacks we lived with before are not hard for us any more; you don't feel it turns your life around - but when you know there are people around your house shooting, it is a different feeling altogether. I felt sick from the minute it started. You have all these thoughts of what could happen. If a rocket falls on you, there aren't that many alternatives of what could happen," she said. 

After getting radio reception and understanding the scale of war, Ms Sharon stated she was "traumatised". Speaking to The Times, she added,"I can't breathe yet, I can't sleep - and it's the first time, I admit, I'm traumatised. "My son is still serving and clearing out the area of what's left of the worst kind of enemy that exists these days." 

Ms Sharon said that a lot of areas of Eshkol have been devastated by bombings and rockets by Hamas. She also informed that the family would return once the situation gets better. "Leaving isn't an option. It will take so much to build it up again, so many things have been diminished altogether and there will be a lot of work and getting through the trauma; learning how to sleep again, how to trust again," she said.