6:29am, 7 October 2023
At first, there was only a whistle. A short, loud shriek coming through our bedroom window, indicating the descent of a mortar from the skies above our house. “Amir, wake up, a mortar!” my wife, Miri, said. In an instant I was awake. We leapt out of bed and, wearing only our underwear, sprinted down the hall, towards the open doorway of our safe room. One second, two seconds, three seconds. We reached the safe room, an above-ground bunker built of thick concrete, and shut its iron door.
That first explosion was followed by more. There had been no siren – nothing to warn us but the whistle. We were surprised and disorientated, but not fearful – not yet. As residents of Nahal Oz, a community…
