I Screamed to My Neighbors: Terrorists Are in Our Building

Like every Saturday, without question, our riding team goes for a ride on our bikes. This time, though, it's just to enjoy a calm cycle for fun with friends because in four days' time we have a riding competition.

So, unlike other Saturdays, we load up our bikes to the car at around 6 a.m. and head towards Kibbutz Be'eri. I'm not usually late for rides, but as I went to leave my home in Sderot, a friend called and said he had no way to get there, so I go back to pick him up.

It means I'm now late, but we're riding for fun so there's no pressure. When we finally arrive at the Alonit grocery store in Kfar Gaza, which is about 1km from the Gaza Strip, we hear explosions.

We didn't know what had happened. We tried to understand why Hamas had fired rockets, and if something had happened before that we were not aware of.

We enter the Alonit store in Kfar Gaza, and five of our friends plus me go into the shelter. Another six are in a parking lot in Kibbutz Be'eri, about 3km from Gaza. The time is 6:20 am.

I call my wife, who is at home alone with three children in Sderot, but she does not answer. I tell my friends I left my wife alone. I just want to get home as soon as possible to be with my family, supporting them and calming them down.

The situation is not normal. Outside, the beautiful sunrise is covered with clouds from missiles fired across the sky in every direction. My friends say to stay put for a few minutes; that things will calm down and soon we will be able to return home.

I feel something is not right, and I am worried that my wife is alone. I leave quickly. One friend joins me, and we rush home from Kfar Gaza to Sderot in what feels like an eternity.

We didn't say a word during the journey. We just looked outside the car and saw people taking cover. Anyone who stayed in the street to hide from the missiles, and did not enter a house, was murdered.

Alarms sound all the way. Missiles continue in all directions. We see cars on the sides of the road and next to shelters full of people. We do not think about red lights or looking right and left, and continue to drive until finally we arrive home.

We run from our vehicle into the apartment block we call home. I go inside my house, and my friend goes to the elevator. As I enter, I say to everyone that I am here; that everything is fine and to calm down.

But the noises outside are not normal. Something in the air feels different. I make phone calls to all my friends to check what's happening. I hear that some are at home, some are on their way. One does not answer. Others tell us they took fire.

I start getting pictures and videos on my phone and begin to understand that there is something big happening. I share a few words with my wife. The images looked and felt like pictures from a war movie; we just couldn't believe it was happening.

We decide to go up to a high floor to be with my friends so that our children will have some company, and also us, too. I go out to the balcony to smoke and try to calm my head.

I see some strange figures in the neighborhood next door. We exchange looks. They wore black clothes and a white band on their foreheads, and military vests loaded with ammunition, grenades, an RPG, and an AK-47.

My friend Amit and I duck. Amit was very stressed and tried to pull me several times back into his home. After two minutes, three terrorists come out of the corner of the street. They are jogging around, scanning the area, until they reach my building.

I pull out my phone and scream to my neighbors on a WhatsApp group that the terrorists are in the building. I say to close the shelters and do not open any doors. I run to floor nine and turn off the electricity to the elevator.

Then I return to my friend's home and lock the door. There are three hours of fear and silence. My whole body hurts from the stress. We manage to alert some passing police by screaming, and report what is happening to them.

They get out of their vehicle, call the armed forces, and scan our building for signs of the terrorists. Everything is clear. We gather at a friend's apartment with several frightened families and an elderly woman who lives alone.

Locked in the apartment, four families spent Shabbat together.

We talk all day and night about one thing: How the hell has this happened with all the technology, with the fence that's worth billions of dollars, with so powerful an army and intelligence?

It felt like, for the last 14 years, I lived in an illusion of safety. It's my home. It's my friends. It's my heart. But my house—my fortress—was breached. I have no place I feel I can return to. Life as we knew it, after everything that has happened, has ended.

I have friends who were injured, kidnapped, and murdered. Three of my friends from our riding team were murdered. A lot of people I know were injured or killed. I don't think I'm in the grieving process yet—I'm still in survival mode.

I may be able to bring my family back to Sderot if Gaza is secured. We are currently staying at the home of a wonderful woman who invited us in. But my wife Tamar and I understand that the home that we knew no longer exists. We will never feel safe there.

All day, my little son, only two years old, screams for his home. I do not know how to tell him that we have no home to return to.

Alon Ronen is a married 36-year-old father of three from Sderot, Israel.

All views expressed are the author's own.

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