October 7 through the eyes of a French olah - opinion

The night began in a haze, but everything felt normal – eerily so, in retrospect. Tel Aviv was buzzing with its usual energy, the streets busy with people celebrating, laughing, living. The city pulsed with life, as it always does, vibrant and carefree. 

I was walking home tipsy, after one too many celebratory shots for Simchat Torah, my senses dulled by the joy of the holiday and the warmth of being surrounded by friends. There was no warning, no sign that anything was amiss. Nothing could have prepared us for the unimaginable that would come with the dawn of the next day.

By the time I stumbled into bed, my head was spinning, and I barely had the energy to remind myself that I’d need to wake up for synagogue in the morning. The world blurred into a dizzying swirl as I passed out, the holiday joy still lingering on the edges of my consciousness.

Then, the siren.

It sliced through my sleep, yanking me from a deep dream with brutal efficiency. At first, it was just a sound, distant and unrecognizable. But within moments, the reality set in: the siren. I shot out of bed, heart racing, my body propelled by instinct before my mind could fully grasp the gravity of the situation. 

I bolted to my safe room, my hands shaking as I tried to close the windows the way I had been shown – how it’s supposed to be done. But this was my first time doing it for real. Alone, disoriented, and scared, I fumbled. Maybe it was an isolated incident? Or worse, maybe I had slept through a drill?

Ten minutes. That’s how long they tell us to stay in the safe room. I waited. The silence outside seemed to confirm my suspicions – it was probably nothing. Cautiously, I returned to bed, my body still trembling as I lay down. I was too exhausted to fight the wave of sleep pulling me back under.

Another siren. Louder this time. Closer.

I ran back to the safe room, my pulse quickening. The explosions were deafening now, the sharp thuds of the Iron Dome intercepting rockets above, vibrating through the walls of my building. It felt like war had arrived at my doorstep. Panic gripped me. I turned on my phone, still hesitant because of Shabbat, but also desperate for information.

I wish I had never turned it on.

The notifications flooded in, each one worse than the last: “10 civilians killed at a festival.” “Terrorists have entered Israel.” “Israelis kidnapped.” My fingers trembled as I scrolled through messages and news alerts. Videos of terrorists parading through Sderot, armed and chaotic, filled my screen. My mind was a whirlwind, struggling to make sense of the images that seemed impossible.

I texted my friend Etan, a former IDF soldier. If anyone knew what was happening, it was him. The reply came swiftly: “We are at war. I’ve been called up.”

Those words hit me like a blow. War. It felt surreal, like something from a history book, not my life. The videos were unbearable to watch – bodies, destruction, terror. Could this really be happening? 

My thoughts raced as the sirens continued to scream above, as the explosions from the Iron Dome rattled my windows. My fear grew with every second. I Googled the distance between me and Sderot – an hour’s drive. That’s how close the terror was.

I managed to call my friend Hanava, and by some miracle, she found a cab to come to my apartment. The day passed in a blur of anxiety, half-watching the news, half-huddling in the safe room, praying for it to end. The numbers kept rising. Every report was worse than the last – more dead, more attacks, more pain.

ALL MY FRIENDS were buying plane tickets, scrambling to leave Israel, but I refused. How could I leave when the country was bleeding? When people were suffering? I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.

Amid the chaos, I saw a familiar face in the flood of posts about missing persons from the Supernova music festival. Liam. We’d never met in person, but he had added me on Instagram just a few weeks earlier, and we had chatted back and forth, making vague plans to meet up. I remembered him mentioning he was going to a festival. That festival.

I messaged him, desperately: “I hope you’re safe.”

The hours stretched on, each one more agonizing than the last. Around 6 p.m., a rocket hit close to my building. The ground shook with such force I thought the explosion had torn through my apartment. My body trembled, tears streaming down my face as I screamed into the silence that followed. Everything had flipped in the blink of an eye, the joy of the holiday replaced by terror, by an overwhelming sense of helplessness.

I kept checking my messages, hoping for a sign from Liam. Nothing. I messaged one of his friends. He didn’t know much either but promised to keep me updated. The waiting was unbearable. The sounds of war, the images I couldn’t shake from my mind – terrorists so close, Israelis being held hostage, sleeping in Gaza. That thought haunted me.

At some point I must have passed out, though sleep brought no relief. Only nightmares.

Nearly 365 days later, those images still haunt me. Every night, I think of them – the hostages, still in Gaza, just as they have been for the past 365 nights. I grieve for Liam and the 1,200 others whose lives were viciously stolen on that fateful day. The world has moved on, but we can’t. The weight of that day lingers, heavier with each passing day.

The writer is a new immigrant from France who made aliyah in October 2022. She currently works as the press and media coordinator for the Zionist Organization of America, where she advocates for Zionist values and supports pro-Israel initiatives globally.