https://www.hidabroot.org/video/221040
All 3 women grew up there, but the grandmother, a Moroccan woman named Batya Cohen, remained the only one actually in the kibbutz on the day 300 terrorists invaded from Gaza.
Saved by a Rocket Strike
Throughout all those years, she never remembers even one time hearing so many repeated sirens of incoming rockets as on Shabbat/Simchat Torah, when Gazan terrorists attacked the southern communities surrounding Gaza.
Batya's mamad (reinforced shelter room) shared a wall with the bedroom of her deceased son, where she still kept his clothes and possessions. Pictures of him still hung on the wall.
Normally, she gathered his things to take to the mamad for safekeeping, but the day of that horrific attack, she never found the opportunity.
She remained in contact with her granddaughter, Natalie, who stayed back on the army base that Shabbat.
Via the messages from the kibbutz WhatsApp, her granddaughter Natalie already realized terrorists had invaded.
But the grandmother, Batya, only heard the sirens and rocket explosions at that point.
Natalie instructed her grandmother to stay in the mamad, hold the handle in locked position, and remain silent — she warned her grandmother to communicate via text only, no phone calls.
FYI about the mamad:
The mamad door opens outward.
Meaning from the inside, you need to push it open and from the outside, you need to pull it open.
This means it is clearly harder to keep it shut from the inside (because you need more strength to pull back to keep it closed) than to pull open it from the outside.
Originally designed that way as a safety feature, it allows easier access from outside for rescue services, because the door cannot be blocked from from the inside.
Likewise, the "lock" position doesn't actually lock the door from being opened from either side.
The "lock" position merely seals the thick rubber band around the door so gas cannot seep into the room — a safety precaution from the Gulf War, when Israel feared the possibility of chemical bombs used against Israeli civilians.
Then Batya heard rapid-fire gunshots and Arabic.
It is ridiculous to assume a petite 83-year-old woman can hold the door handle in place against a strong young Arab male pulling the handle out of lock position.
And Batya knew it.
Suddenly, a kasam rocket hit her deceased son's bedroom.
Debris from the rocket and home fell across the front of the mamad door outside the mamad.
(The sound and sensation of the strike would have been terrifying.)
When terrorists broke into Batya's home, they found it too difficult to clear away the chunky blocks of debris from in front of the mamad door.
If not for the debris, they could easily open the door from the outside.
Instead, they called out in Hebrew: "Is anyone in there?"
Batya remained silent.
Then the terrorists called out again in Hebrew: "We're the IDF — we've come to take you out!"
Yet Batya still did not utter a sound.
So the terrorists turned around and made themselves at home in Batya's living room and kitchen, eating her food and plotting out the rest of their attack.
Batya's Discovery of the Chillingly Detailed Pre-Planning of the Attack
(Batya contacted Natalie, saying she felt she lacked air in the sealed room and could no longer breathe, Natalie reassured her, "It only seems that way, Grandma. Just relax and take a deep breath.")
During those hours, the terrorists gathered in the orchard directly beneath the window of Batya's mamad.
(They also tried to open the window of the mamad from the outside, but for some reason, did not succeed.)
With her knowledge of the Moroccan dialect of Arabic, she understood some of what the terrorists discussed.
To her shock, she heard how they knew all the families in the kibbutz by name, plus the location of everyone and everything.
Apparently, the terrorists had assigned numbers to the different homes and buildings because in addition to referring to the families by name, Batya heard them constantly refer to places by certain numbers.
Batya Considers Ending Everything Quickly
Dehydrated, traumatized, and lacking sufficient air in the dark room with murderous terrorists both outside her mamad door and outside her window, Batya said she knew she was going to die.
And she wondered why she should draw out the process of dying?
She knew if she opened the door, the terrorists would kill her and thus shorten the process for her.
(At that time, she did not know of the brutality with which they murdered Jews.)
She thought they would "just" shoot her and it would all be over.
So Batya seriously considered opening the door.
But for some reason, she didn't.
Rescue at Last
It sounds funny in English translation, but it's proper Hebrew.
And that reassured Batya.
However, she wisely remained suspicious and asked them for the password.
(At some point, the IDF assigned each kibbutz a password, then texted this password to the residents trapped inside. However, this only worked if the residents' cell phones still worked by the time the IDF created and sent the designated password.)
The soldier mistakenly told her the password for Nir Oz.
Another soldier corrected him, then he called out the password for Kfar Aza.
And Batya opened the door to freedom.
Healing & Starting All Over Again
She also discovered her two sons-in-law were dead.
One, the father of Natalie and now divorced from Batya's daughter Orit, was found lying in the grass.
As one of the first responders, he headed straight for the armory for weapons (they hadn't been allowed to keep weapons at home) — but which the terrorists had immediately taken over.
In the battle, he hadn't made it.
His last communication with his daughter Natalie had been at 6:53 in the morning of the attack, as he raced toward the armory.
As Batya, now in a safe place with her daughters and grandchildren, recovered physically and emotionally from attack, she mourned the loss of all her mementos from her deceased son.
But one of her family members returned to Batya's home and came back with the pictures of the son, telling Batya the pictures of the deceased son had remained on the wall!
The kasam destroyed the room and the son's possessions, but somehow, the pictures remained untouched, only covered with an easily brushed-off layer of dust.
And Batya found comfort in the remaining photographs of her son.
She also finds healing in knitting.
In the place that hosts her now, she knits a monogrammed vest for each baby born. She knits hats for soldiers.
She never wants to see that mamad room again.
On the other hand, her husband, her son, and her sons-in-law are buried in Kfar Aza.
She also stated her desire to stay with her remaining daughters and their children.
Wherever they are, that's where she wants to be too.
Despite All the Horror & Tragedy, There is Obvious Precision Seen in Batya's Survival
A mamad room, despite its specially reinforced design, cannot survive a direct hit from a rocket.
So it's amazing how Hashem fine-tuned the rocket to hit in so precisely a way that its debris blocked the terrorists' access to the door of the mamad, but without harming the mamad — or Batya — in any way.
And also how the rocket destroyed the deceased son's bedroom, but not the fragile photos hanging on the wall of that room.
It's clear Batya suffered and also continues to suffer from the loss of her closest friends and family, plus the loss of her home and community (especially at her age, when a person naturally settles down in life, and such an uprooting proves more challenging than ever).
But it's also clear how the Creator held her so meticulously in His Hand.
May Hashem please bring the complete Geula speedily b'rachamim.