Many documentaries have been made during the past year about the Hamas mega-atrocity of Oct. 7. Now a new book has been published in English in the US on the subject – Lee Yaron’s 10/7: 100 Human Stories.
Like the documentaries about the Hamas massacre and hostage-taking, which are not easy to watch, Yaron’s book can be difficult to read. One look at the chapter headings – such as “Rave” and “To Kibbutz Be’eri and Back” – and you may struggle with the impulse to put down the book.
But that would be a mistake because Yaron, a reporter for Haaretz, has worked hard to tell stories in depth in a way that daily journalism, which includes news broadcasts and newspapers, cannot.
She has painstakingly created an epic tapestry of the events of the day, going generations back into the region’s history and of those caught up in the terror attack, to make their stories vivid.
She also weaves in her own sensibility as a leftist coming to grips with the attacks. The book is dedicated to her childhood friend Gal Eisenkot, the son of former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot. Gal was a soldier killed fighting in Gaza during this war. The dedication describes him as “a man of peace who did not come back from war.”
Reliving the day's horrors
One hundred is an ambitious number of stories to fit into one book, and in some of the chapters many people are introduced quickly, and at times it can be hard to keep track of them. When the book works best, it brings the subjects to life by telling what brought them to the place where they were murdered or attacked. As you read Yaron’s book, it isn’t just the survivors’ recollections but also the details about those who were killed that makes you care about them.
One of the highlights is the chapter on the van filled with elderly residents of Sderot, Netivot, and Ofakim. They were murdered on their way to the Dead Sea when the driver stopped to change a flat tire, making them especially easy prey for the terrorists. The picture of these senior citizens lying dead near a bomb shelter is especially gruesome.
She recreates the world of these immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Two of the passengers were sisters in their 70s, Nadezhda Sprebchikov-Tumiib and Natalya Sprebchikov-Tumiib. One had been a police officer and the other a chemist in their native Tajikistan but had to give up their professions when they moved to Israel in their 40s because of their limited Hebrew. Now that they were retired, visits to the Dead Sea were a small luxury they treasured.
The tour company that took them to the Ein Bokek resort complex on the Dead Sea was a side business of Alexei Davidov, who was born in Dagestan and lived in Ofakim. Customers like the two sisters paid Davidov in advance for the weekly trips.
A Bedouin driver would pick up passengers at around 6:30 a.m. from these southern cities, take them to the Dead Sea, and bring them back right after lunch. Yaron reports that the drivers complained about being annoyed by the passengers singing Russian songs during the trip. Reading this account, I felt that I was right there in the van with them.
Other chapters give voice to communities that are not often heard from in Israel. These include the Negev Bedouin, who suffered heavy losses from the missile attacks on Oct. 7, as well as being murdered and kidnapped by the terrorists. There is the story of Amar Abu Salila, a Bedouin who died trying to save two girls in Sderot.
Many Bedouin lacked bomb shelters. The chapter on how Bedouin villagers were killed by missiles ends with a description of how, as the families grieved for their dead in tents, they were visited by representatives of companies that offered them makeshift shelters.
“While the mothers appreciated the gesture, they were left wondering how to choose which of their remaining children to save. There were 56 people left in the family, and the safe room could only accommodate six,” Yaron writes.
Another chapter covers the fate of the Nepali students who worked as field laborers in the summer and were to begin studying agriculture at a university once a week when the holiday period ended. Other stories include accounts from the kibbutzim and the Nova music festival.
Chapters in which Yaron gives her personal perspective and political analysis of Gaza do not do much to illuminate the stories from Oct. 7. However, a chapter on the history of Gaza gives some background into the long-simmering conflict.
But none of this background is as compelling as the little-known stories of this war, such as that of Haim Ben Aryeh, who was tasked with taking evacuees from Kibbutz Be’eri to the Dead Sea following the massacre. He was so haunted by these silent, bloodied passengers, that he committed suicide less than a month later.
It’s these kinds of stories that will stay with you after you finish the book, which help bring back some dignity and humanity to those who can no longer speak for themselves.
- 10/7: 100 HUMAN STORIES
- By Lee Yaron
- St. Martin’s Press
- 288 pages; $19