Courtesy of Noam Peri, Hadas Kalderon, and Avihai Brodutch
Chaim Peri, an 80-year-old artist and peace activist, was in his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, around a mile from the Gaza border, when the rocket alerts he had grown so accustomed to were interrupted by sounds he had not.
First, it was automatic gunfire. Then the sounds of men shouting in Arabic drew closer to his door. Chaim and his 70-year-old wife Osnat ran to their safe room, a bomb shelter that is found in nearly every Israeli home. They waited quietly and listened as gunmen burst through their front door. Sensing that the militants were about to open the safe room’s door—which does not lock for safety reasons—Chaim sprang it open, pushing the militants so forcefully that they left. Fearing they would be back soon with reinforcements, Osnat hid behind baskets of yarn and fabric, while Chaim stood and waited. Minutes later, Osnat watched from behind the baskets as her husband was dragged away by Hamas fighters. “Don’t resist,” she heard them tell Chaim. “We won’t hurt you.”
Chaim, a father of five and grandfather of thirteen, remains missing in Gaza. He is one of an estimated 230 Israeli men, women and children who were kidnapped on Oct. 7, in the single deadliest day in Israel’s history. Israelis are still absorbing the pain, shock and horror of what happened that day, when Hamas fighters armed with grenades, machine guns and RPGs breached the fortified Gaza border fence, infiltrated nearly two dozen Israeli border towns, and proceeded to shoot men, women and children, in some cases raping, mutilating and burning their victims alive, according to survivors, first responders, and images uploaded by Hamas to Telegram and social media. Hamas killed an estimated 1,400 people in one day, most of them civilians who were gunned down in their homes or at a massive outdoor music festival. In a tiny nation like Israel, with a population of 10 million people, the numbers are staggering. Seemingly everyone knows someone who was killed or kidnapped.