OCT. 7th Survivors Eilat Tibi & Idan Krief Tell their Stories

In a world where adversity often tests the limits of human resilience, the stories of survivors serve as beacons of hope, strength, and inspiration. Two individuals, each with their own harrowing experiences, came together to share their tales of survival and heroism.

Funded by the World Zionist Organization and the Canadian Zionist Organization, Eilat Tibi & Idan Krief appeared in Winnipeg as part of a cross-Canada tour, sharing their experiences as survivors of the October 7 terrorist attacks.

Eilat, a survivor of the Nova Festival tragedy, and Ido, a survivor of the Hamas amphibious landings near the Israel-Gaza border, each had a unique experience and showed us two perspectives from that tragic day. Moreover, beyond doing just a simple chronological recounting of the day’s events, about which most people already have a good understanding, they offered profound insights into the on-the-ground chaos, their emotional experiences during the terrorist attacks, and how the Israeli zeitgeist reacted writ large.

Eilat’s Story:

Eilat Tibi’s story is one of courage amidst chaos. As a survivor of the Nova Festival disaster, where beyond the massacre, a desperate stampede claimed the lives of many, Eilat’s resilience shines through the darkness. Her journey from the depths of despair to becoming a beacon of hope for others is nothing short of remarkable. Through listening to and reading about her experience, we gained a glimpse into the indomitable human spirit and the power of community solidarity in the face of tragedy.

The following are segments from her presentation at Gwen Secter Creative Living Centre on April 10:

“First, I bought the tickets to the Nova Festival three months in advance. For me, the music festival is a community event. We celebrate life through music and dance. My friends and I were getting ready, doing my nails with the sign of the nova. We were really excited about the facilities and the music.”

“We decided to come early in the morning after a good night’s sleep because we were very stuffed after the holiday dinner. So we went at 5 a.m., and it was dark out. While we drove in the dark, we realized the lights in the distance when we were nearing the festival, and my friend said to me that they were the lights of Gaza.”

“I’m not from the area near Gaza,” she added. “I wasn’t frightened about it. I knew that we were close to Gaza. I knew that we had a border with Gaza.”

“So, it (must be) okay,” she said, recounting how she mistakenly reassured herself. “At 6 a.m., we arrived at the festival. We arrived there and took the time to enter. At 6:25, we bought our first beer. We were getting ready to party, and at 6:30, the music stopped. People said that until 6:30, it was the best party, and there were 4,000 people. It was the best party that was full of love and full of young adults who loved each other, who didn’t really care what our jobs were or what our political difference was.”

“At 6:30, the music stops, and when the music stops when you’re at a music festival, your first thought is that it’s an electricity problem. Everyone started applauding the DJ, but then the DJ took the microphone and said to us, “Code red”. Then we started to hear the sirens and see the rockets above our heads!

“And the rockets didn’t stop for a minute! There were a lot of rockets. The police immediately started to evacuate everybody from the place.

“At 6:45, we were on the road, and I got a message from my (IDF) unit on the WhatsApp group that we were being called in, telling me to come to the base. So, I told my friend we needed to get to Tel Aviv fast because I needed to go back.

“At 7 a.m., we stopped near the Gaza Strip. Every house has a safe room, and on the roads, there are bomb shelters. Some were hit by rockets and without doors. You can still enter these bomb shelters, and if rockets land near you, they won’t affect you. So we stopped near a bomb shelter.

“These bomb shelters were not all safe because very soon terrorists realized that there were people inside, and they threw grenades and killed all the people inside the shelters. We were lucky that the bomb shelter where we stopped was full inside, so we were outside the doorway. Then we heard the gunshots. At 7 a.m., we heard the gunshots and immediately realized that those were terrorists.

“But what happened? Immediately, we got into the car and continued driving off. After we drove north, we realized that cars were turning around with bullet holes in the cars and injured people; there were terrorists on the road that killed anyone. Although, at the time, I didn’t realize what happened. We turned around and went back toward the festival to the south. I had luck that I stopped in the bomb shelter, and it was full inside because if it weren’t, maybe I would still be inside.”

“But you think it’s just five or six terrorists like every terrorist attack in Israel. No. So we drove to the south, and we saw cars were burned, and everyone on this road, the terrorists massacred them. We’ve been on this road for 15 – 20 minutes. I couldn’t go to the north. I couldn’t go to the South because there were shootings all over the road. I think it was the one time that I was really afraid. The policemen and soldiers that were there trying to eliminate the terrorists turned around, ran to us and told us to leave the car and run through the fields.

And when policemen tell you to leave your car and run toward the fields, you do that, and this is what we did.

“I ran through the fields with my friends. Big fields. Very dry fields. And we ran through the fields for something like 100 meters. My personal story is that I froze at that moment.

“I stopped. I really stopped in the fields and froze. My friend saved me. They realized what happened and came back to me, shook me, and told me to keep quiet and keep running. Ever since that moment,” she added, “I didn’t look back. I only looked ahead and continued running. After 600 metres, we understand that we need to continue running, so we tried to stop a car (to get a ride) because some of the cars had been able to drive through the fields. After many cars went past because they were full, we were able to get in a car full of strangers. Finally, at 8:20 a.m., we arrived and passed the police blockade.”

Idan’s Story:

On the other hand, Idan Krief’s narrative brings to light the ongoing challenges faced by communities located near the border with Gaza, the “Gaza Envelope”. As a resident of Kibbutz Zikim in this volatile region, Idan has experienced firsthand the relentless barrage of rocket attacks and the constant threat of violence. Yet amidst the turmoil, he remains unwavering in his commitment to his community and his homeland. Through his story, listeners and readers gain(ed) a deeper understanding of the resilience ingrained within Israeli society and the unwavering determination to thrive despite adversity, generation after generation.

The following are segments from his presentation at Gwen Secter Creative Living Centre on April 10:

“Hello, everyone. It’s Idan; nice to meet you all. I’m 24 years old. Before the war, I worked as the director of an educational program for Kibbutz Zikim. Two hundred thirty teenagers come every day, and our program provides educational activities in the summer. I would say that we teach them leadership skills in the field. On October 7th, the children and their families evacuated to the north of the country because of the situation.

“My story… So, my story began on October 7th. It’s 6:30 in the morning, and motorboats, a Hamas force, come with a lot of divers from the sea and try to cross the border. This is the border between Gaza (and Israel) near my kibbutz,” he says, pointing to a map he has projected on the screen.

“This is a cave,” he says, continuing to point things out. “And this is the beach. Our emergency team is a volunteer team made of members of the kibbutz, but they are civilian people, they are family. And the mission is just a security situation. The army is usually supposed to come to take over from us after about ten to thirty minutes, but on October 7th, they took longer. So they called our commander and told the soldiers; the emergency team called everybody to secure the kibbutz defences because they knew something bad happened on the beach.

“The Navy successfully destroyed eight Hamas boats out of the ten boats they launched. These exploded and also killed most of the militant divers who were found dead in the morning. But two of the motorboats succeeded in coming to the beach and began fighting with the five soldiers of a Golani brigade, and they succeeded. At first, there were twenty terrorists against five soldiers that morning. Twenty-five civilian people were also on the beach; they had come to have fun. On Saturday morning, there were a lot of people going to the beach, some of them to fish, some of them to camp, swim, and play, but Hamas came and murdered them before the army could arrive.

“In those initial moments on my kibbutz, no one really understood what was happening. We woke up like everyone in Israel to a crazy moment of an Iron Dome alarm. It’s crazy. It’s a red alert (indicating a serious attack). Okay, and we understand – we need to go to the safe room.

“Nobody really knows what had happened, but all of us understand that something is wrong, it is not safe. It was really strange because they (the IDF) normally only blast the sirens for one or two minutes, but this time it was almost 30 minutes. It didn’t stop for a minute. I was there in my safe room with my girlfriend and a rocket fell, something like 20 meters away. It broke the door. We understand that we need to go out because the sounds of the rockets were replaced with the sounds of machine guns. We decided to go to my parents’ home. It was not a smart decision because my parents’ home is near the fence of the kibbutz bordering Gaza.

“When we get close to my parents’, the sound of the machine guns gets louder. And I remember I looked at the fence, and I told my girlfriend, go and say to my parents that I don’t understand what happened, but whenever you can, take the car, go quickly and get outside of the area. I will try to come to you as soon as I can, and I’m going to the fence to help my friends defend the kibbutz. When I get there, one of the members of the emergency team is on the ground, his leg is hurt because some of the terrorists threw a grenade on him. So I take his protective gear and his weapon and go to keep fighting and replace him in the defensive position.”

Idan showed us several short clips of the attack on his kibbutz, including one where civilians are video recording the terrorists at the fence, thinking they are IDF soldiers.

“They filmed that, and you can see they don’t understand what’s happening. We can see that this is a photo of the members reloading when they get to the fence. And not one of them really understood what happened. They are laughing and they don’t understand that we are under attack. You know, people that understand what’s happening in front of them don’t stand outside and film any of this. They are going to start immediately running for their lives. So it shows us how much people were disconnected from the situation. Part of this is because we don’t have any signal or internet. I think no one could imagine that something like this could happen.

“After the fight, it took something like five hours until we made the decision to go outside of the kibbutz and go around the terrorists in some coordinated pincer attack. We succeeded in eliminating all the terrorists, and there were around 15 terrorists.

“We were in this intensive situation, and you understood, first, that you don’t have any choice because it’s you and your family that are 100 meters behind you. We don’t have a moment to think, we just act.

“And that’s why we thought it was just local. Okay? We’re waiting for them (the IDF) and our new ammunition. We’re almost out of ammo, and they don’t come, and we don’t know why until, somewhere around eight in the evening, the internet signal came back, and we start to understand the big picture and what was happening all over the country.

“Mainly we start to understand the urgent need to evacuate all the people, all the civilians, all the families. And so we start to evacuate all the families in groups of cars with the members of the emergency team.”

Both Eilat and Idan’s experiences offer profound insights into the human condition. From personal trauma to collective resilience, their stories transcend individual narratives to become emblematic of broader societal struggles and triumphs. Through their courage and perseverance, they exemplify the strength of the human spirit and the power of solidarity in overcoming even the darkest times. As they come together to share their stories, Eilat Tibi and Idan Krief offer a glimpse into their own journeys and an invitation to reflect on the shared experiences that unite us all. Their tales of survival and heroism remind us of the strength that lies within each of us and the importance of standing together in the face of adversity.