This is the dramatic moment a British mother fled the besieged settlement of Yeted with her family across open fields, passing army forces in a gun battle with Hamas troops – while leaving behind her adult soldier son to fought on the front line.
Debby Sharon put her foot on the accelerator and sped past tanks and dodged bullets after hiding in her family’s safe for more than 36 hours as their village, a community of just 120 families four kilometers from the Gaza border, came under fire from Hamas.
As she ran to safety, her son was on the front line, one of the soldiers facing hundreds of militiamen who had infiltrated Israel’s borders in the early hours of Saturday morning.
One of 300,000 reservists now serving Israel’s worst offensive in 50 years, Sharon now anxiously waits hour by hour for updates from her son Zohar, 27, who was called up on Sunday with his parachute unit, a days after Hamas declared war on Israel.
After a complete evacuation, her Yeted home is now among several settlements that have now become a closed military zone, and dozens of community members are still missing or presumed dead.
Debby Sharon (pictured with her dog) hid in her family’s safe for more than 36 hours as their village, a community of just 120 families four kilometers from the Gaza border, came under fire from Hamas.
Debby put her foot on the accelerator and sped past the tanks and dodged the bullets
She and her husband, daughter and son-in-law, autistic son and three grandchildren under the age of 11 were all in a single 3×2 square meter room with no electricity as they listened to hour after hour of gunfire and rockets.
With their phones running out of charge just hours into the ordeal, they had no idea what was happening beyond their small home in Israel’s southern region and its most active frontline.
“In those hours I really understood the mentality that my English mother had brought us up with as we grew up during the Second World War and how she taught us to behave in emergencies,” she said.
She remembers looking out the window during a quiet moment when she left the shelter to assess what was happening, seeing people running around chaotically. “It was apocalyptic,” she said.
“Nothing could have prepared us for this. The idea of ”keeping your chin up” and staying positive in the midst of chaos and uncertainty, I could see it all happening in those moments. I felt like I was acting out all those stories my mother had told me growing up.
“Trying to keep the kids calm, to stop them from screaming, to stop them from leaving, all while we’re all together in a safe room that’s designed to kept us safe from missiles, not terrorists, so it didn’t even close. from the inside.’
Having lived in Israel since she was just five years old, wars were all too familiar to Sharon, a criminal lawyer, but what unfolded on Saturday morning was like nothing she had ever seen.
Her father had served in the Yom Kippur War 50 years earlier, but with hundreds of Hamas militias on a killing spree in Israeli homes, she brought the battlefront much closer than the country had ever known.
“It sounds crazy to say it, but the rocket attacks we used to live with are no longer difficult for us, you don’t feel that it turns your life around, but when you know there are people around your house shooting, it’s different. feelings altogether.
“I felt sick from the minute it started. You have all these thoughts about what could happen. If a missile lands on you, there are not many alternatives to what could happen,” she added.
Evacuated by a convoy of reservists from the community across the fields, Sharon and her family passed a graveyard of wrecked civilian cars and army vehicles, a chilling sign that even the army was not safe here.
It wasn’t until they started receiving radios and she heard news updates that she realized the scale of the war after being sheltered without contact for about 24 hours.
Debby made the dangerous journey in her car. After a complete evacuation, her Yeted home is now among several settlements that have now become a closed military zone, and dozens of community members are still missing or presumed dead.
Debbie’s family at the dinner table. As she fled to safety, her son was on the front line, one of the soldiers fighting hundreds of militiamen who had infiltrated Israel’s borders in the early hours of Saturday morning.
Debbie’s family is in hiding. She and her husband, daughter and son-in-law, autistic son and three grandchildren under the age of 11 were all in a single 3×2 square meter room with no electricity as they listened to hour after hour of gunfire and rockets.
“I still can’t breathe, I can’t sleep and it’s the first time I admit that I’m traumatized,” she said. “My son is still serving and clearing the area of what’s left of the worst kind of enemy that exists these days,” local area now unknown.
Despite the fact that large parts of the region known as Eshkol have been destroyed by bombing and shooting, houses burned by the militia, she said there is no question of their return.
“Leaving is not an option,” Sharon smiled, with an indomitable spirit. “It’s going to take so much to build it back up, so much has been stripped away and it’s going to be a lot of work and going through trauma, learning how to sleep again, how to trust again.
“So many young children have suffered terrible mental injuries and there is work to be done, but I can’t imagine giving up that beautiful area. So many people died here that by abandoning it, we are not honoring their memory.’
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