A 31-year-old Argentine woman, back in the country after a brutal attack by Hamas, said her body was “here,” but her mind was still stuck in Israel.
JL, who prefers to protect her identity out of fear, describes her life in a city north of Tel Aviv and the sudden return to Argentina with her husband and two daughters, aged 3 years and six months, respectively, driven by panic to enter. of Islamist terrorists in the territory of Israel.
“At 6:30 in the morning there was the first siren. I was sleeping and I woke up because of the siren and it was a very strange sensation because I didn’t see it coming, unlike other conflicts I have experienced. like one “He prepares mentally because he knows in advance that something may happen. And this time it is very surprising,” shared the woman in a tense voice marked by sadness.
Taking refuge in his house, he tried to remain calm to comfort his eldest daughter, who now understood the gravity of the situation. “We started writing to family and friends and very quickly we realized that this was not a normal attack, as if it was something bigger,” he continued in his anxiety-filled story. .
JL admits that his biggest fear is the possibility of infiltrating the ground, because the missiles do not inspire fear in him thanks to his trust in the steel dome system.
“I have anxiety attacks, especially about my daughters. The reality of going on the road and that there might be a terrorist next to you. I was very afraid and closed all the blind at home even though it’s 10 o’clock in the morning. tomorrow because I’m afraid that they might enter the garden,” he told that the fear is still there.
JL and her husband’s decision to seek tickets to leave Israel was made on the same Sunday, as authorities raised the death toll from Hamas attacks.
“When we decided that we were going to leave, we wanted to go everywhere, we didn’t think of going to another country and seeing from there, but we wanted to leave Israel in principle. An agency told us that it had a ticket to Buenos Aires in three hours, so we packed our suitcases and left,” the woman, who had to stop in Madrid before arriving in the country, told Télam.
When they arrived at the airport in Israel, they faced a depressing scene: canceled flights, desperate people, some evacuated from southern cities, and others sleeping in the hall. “We saw on the screen all the canceled flights, except ours and two others. I didn’t know if we were going to leave until we got on the plane, it was all uncertain,” remembers JL, now in Buenos Aires, but his mind is still troubled by anxiety. faced with the conflict that has arisen.
“My body is here but my mind is in Israel. The only thing that gives me the strength not to return is my daughters because I want to be there,” he declared firmly, hiding his identity because for fear of retaliation.
“The danger is the world because there are terrorists all over the world and it is a bigger organization than we think. I don’t want to feel insecure in another country, but terrorists don’t sit idle,” she is crying..
Chronology of terrorism
On Saturday, Hamas militants infiltrated Israel from the Gaza Strip, unleashing chaos that included killing civilians in their homes, streets and even at an outdoor party. They have also kidnapped civilians and soldiers, threatening to kill them if the attacks on Gaza continue.
Since then, the conflict has escalated with the bombing of the Israeli Army in the Gaza Strip and rocket fire by Palestinian militiamen, which has left a tragic result of at least 1,200 people dead in Israel and almost 1,100 Palestinians.
In this context, the Government of Argentina has demanded the release of hostages held by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, while the “Safe Return” operation is progressing to repatriate 1,419 Argentines who requested to be evacuated from Israel. (ClarÃn and Télam)
