NETIVOT. «We trust you because you have the power. And she said the right thing. You have to put pressure on every single entity that has a connection to Hamas, so that they understand that the game has changed.” Gili Roman’s green eyes are focused on those of minister Antonio Tajani, as she tells him the story of her sister, Yarden Roman-Gat, who he believes may be held hostage in Gaza. Caught with her husband and three-year-old daughter in the attack on Kibbutz Be’eri, one of the first communities to be invaded by armed Hamas militiamen, Yarden managed to save the little girl while fleeing from the armed men’s car of Hamas who were already bringing them to the Strip. «Alon, Yarden and Geffen fled into the woods, chased by terrorists. She handed the child over to her husband, so that he could run faster than her. After hiding in the dark for 12 hours in the brush, Alon was rescued by army troops at dawn on Sunday. Since then, we have lost track of my sister.”
“The priority for Italy is the rescue of the hostages”, insisted the head of the Farnesina who yesterday began his mission to Israel from Netivot “to offer our solidarity”. In the fields on the edge of road 34, the large concentration of Israeli troops is very evident, with tanks and men ready to intervene.
Netivot is one of those towns that are neither large nor small, with new, expanding neighborhoods, with the typical high-rise condominiums built on copy/paste designs that you see popping up all over Israel, between the desert dunes and those along the coast. Lay people, religious people and Haredim live there, “each in his own neighborhood but we are still united”, say two volunteers from the municipal emergency reception and management centre. Here everyone expresses gratitude for the outstretched hands and human warmth shown by diplomats and the international press, and for the aid and donations that arrive daily from compatriots, in every corner of the country. They are clothes, underwear, shoes and uniforms for the soldiers, «because when they were called on Saturday, they left without having time to pack their bags», explains Herut (her name means “freedom”), a 21-year-old volunteer. But also toys to occupy children’s time and distract them from the reality they have fallen into. So that the collective shelters, bare and without natural light, can at least vaguely recall a nursery or a playroom in a kindergarten. And then food and hygiene products which are distributed from the warehouse in the center of Netivot to families «who are afraid to leave their homes. So we go to them”, explains another girl, Rivka. Volunteering is in their blood, these kids who have been holding their breath and crying since Saturday and trying to hold onto the future of Israel. While they work, they laugh, joke and have fun. They are very young, between 20 and 30 years old. «We try to be strong and keep our spirits high.
You can’t cry all the time. The tears are there, behind the eyes. We hold them. And if you don’t cry, you laugh,” admits Matania, 32, who hitchhiked from the city of Be’er Sheva to lend a hand. There is only one question that manages to crack that superficial layer of light-heartedness. How could this happen? «I try not to think about it, it’s something I don’t have the power to change. It’s happened now,” stammers Herut. «This week I went to the funeral of two friends. If we concentrated on the pain, we would feel weak.” What characterized the early hours of Saturday, when in the coordination room the phones started ringing and the cameras showed the arrival of the terrorists in the city. Orly Massas, who was on duty, remembers “the panic”. She returned to Netivot from the US after 9/11 because she no longer felt safe. Now, after having lost some loved ones in this violent attack, she feels the same feeling as then but “here I am among my people and I feel that I can be of help”. A policeman remembers the first excited moments. Precisely thanks to the presence of this service, the armed forces managed to intervene promptly in Netivot and eliminated six terrorists who were trying to infiltrate from the fields behind the train station. Four of them were shot and handed over to the police. Two managed to escape. Now the center is on maximum alert for what could happen during the night.
In the evening Tajani flew to Amman, precisely to continue to exert the pressure that the young Israeli begged him for. «I am asking Arab countries to be peace mediators for a de-escalation of the conflict. Their help is invaluable in freeing hostages and creating humanitarian corridors to save civilians.”
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