A truly amazing survival story
What a strong constitution this guy must have. And what a loving father he is:
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
What a strong constitution this guy must have. And what a loving father he is:
Well. No earthly reason, beyond the purely accidental, that this father is not me, and this daughter not my own.
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No man is an island, entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were:
Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
Somehow I imagined those communities close to Gaza as being more primitive. Instead they look like where I live — Albuquerque!
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The Mishor Hagefen neighborhood in the city of Ofakim is a good example of the early planning of the Hamas attack. A small neighborhood without safe-rooms.
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I’m thinking, I don’t have a safe room. Should I have a safe room?
I live a couple miles away from a neighborhood known as the “War Zone.” Albuquerque is not exactly a safe, peaceful city. Nonetheless, so far anyway, it’s not considered commonsense to have a safe room.
huxley:
The safe rooms were designed only to protect from rocket attacks, which were a fairly common occurrence in many parts of Israel. They were never expected to protect from terrorists.
Don’t know what an Albuquerque safe room would require.
The safe rooms were designed only to protect from rocket attacks…
neo:
That, I didn’t know. It’s tough as well to imagine living with the real, frequent threat of rockets raining down upon one’s home.
I was tongue in cheek about my situation, though I really did think that at the moment.
I also thought about “The Walking Dead” show, specifically Season 6, Episode 2, “JSS (Just Survive Somehow).”
“The Walking Dead” was the 2010s zombie apocalypse show which went big time. It followed a plucky band of Georgia survivors who found their way to a gated community near DC in which residents had managed to lock its gates in time and live somewhat normal lives in spite of the horrors surrounding it.
However, there is another band of humans calling themselves the “Wolves” who have gone insane and are devoted to a nihilistic mission to convert all humans (other than themselves) to zombies.
They acquire intelligence about the gated community and attack it by surprise. They kill many and capture some as hostages.
The show’s internal conflict is between an abused housewife, Carol, turned warrior, who does all the right things to turn back the attack, and a black guy, Morgan, a pacifist/martial artist who will fight the Wolves but not kill them.
Not surprisingly, his refusal to kill Wolves gets more humans killed. But that’s not a problem for the show writers. Morgan is the Good Guy and Carol is the Extremist.
I had thought the show was going to examine the realistic choices between survival and idealism, but that’s not how the rest of the season panned out.
“The Walking Dead” had a good run, but it killed off its audience from Season 7 onward.
“The Walking Dead” became a walking dead TV show.
I would imagine a lot of Israelis are upgrading their safe rooms ASAP.
For myself, quite fortunate that the contractor made an error in pouring the basement foundation, creating an extra underground “room” outside the house perimeter proper, surrounded by 10″ reinforced concrete, covered by a 32″ reinforced concrete porch stoop. Should stop anything short of C4 against the steel door.
For now, we worry more about tornadoes than terrorists…
Safe rooms are only good against an immediate attack within a civilized country. Fail either (prolonged battle or complete war zone) and they’re simply somewhere to wait until you can’t stand it or you die from lack of necessities.
In cases like his, do your best to make attrition work against them.
The story is similar in some respects to the one of the young woman interviewed about how she survived the attack on the music festival, linked here a couple of weeks ago. In her case she managed to get in a car with her boyfriend, who drove them through gunfire and they somehow escaped unscathed. Unfortunately for every such survival story there are likely dozens who didn’t survive and didn’t get to tell their story.
It also reminds me of the many miraculous holocaust survival stories (people hiding in latrines, escaping to the forest, hidden by non-Jews, etc.), to which I have a similar reaction: The against-all-odds nature of the stories just reinforces the fact that most were not so lucky.
Tough guy!
I hope after this Israel adopts a Second Amendment. The people of Israel need to openly carry sidearms.
Cornhead, I had a similar question after reading Ilana’s prior comment.
Although maybe concealed carry would be more accepted and acceptable.
If the first commandment of Nature is pretty much “survive and continue your genome”, I wonder why early civilizations (which clearly could recognize other humans as the apex hunter on the planet) did not have a similar First Commandment: “Protect thyself from being killed”. While the developing social contract led to government (as Leviathan or otherwise) having sole legal control over using violence, the “police” were almost always minutes away when seconds counted.
Even chimpanzees seem to have a “culture” where several beta males will take out an overly controlling alpha male (sometimes aided by an alpha female). Self preservation seems to be a prime moral position in most situations.
1. Huxley – if your house is masonry you are already somewhat protected. Instead of a safe room you might consider roll-up metal grate/shutters for windows and doors. When open they are unobtrusive and when closed they protect against fire and prevent most 2 legged mischief. Here in Israel they sell very nicely finished versions for residential use.
The Israeli safe rooms are also designed to be hermetic against gas attacks. Remember Saddam Hussein? That adds to the expense and is likely not necessary in most ot the continental US.
2. Israel’s gun laws grew out of a combination of socialist desire for control and wariness of an armed Arab Israeli population.
Most readers here understand that mainstream media’s main task is disqualifying people that speak inconvenient truths… So the media is piling on Israel’s new security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who from day one has ruffled the feathers of the establishment ostriches with their heads in the sand about personal self defense (and the Pali threat in general).
But Ben-Gvir has already changed gun license policy from “may permit” to “shall permit” and the system has been swamped with applications.
Ben Gvir and other “radical fascists” (cue ominous organ music) have been pushing for private gun ownership and neighborhood patrols since the Arab riot/pogroms in Lod and other Israeli cities in 1921.
Now the government is reviving similar citizen patrols and rapid response teams in kibbutzim along the northern border… Better late than never I guess.
Warning: Something Hamas probably doesn’t want you to read.
(Hold on, actually maybe they do!)
OTOH, their supporters most certainly DON’T WANT you to read it…
“Farewell to Liel, 12-year-old victim of Hamas;
“Despite the lack of an official identification for Liel, the family chose to hold a farewell ceremony for her.”—
https://www.jns.org/farewell-to-liel-12-year-old-victim-of-hamas/
And now for something completely different!
“A truly amazing survival story”….
Warning: For history buffs ONLY (and others)…
“The Princes in the Tower ‘SURVIVED’ to launch failed rebellions against Henry VII: Bombshell new evidence suggests royals fled Richard III’s clutches in Tower of London before assuming identities of usurpers;
“It has long been believed that the princes were murdered by Richard III
Evidence has been unearthed by Philippa Langley, who found Richard’s remains”—
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12761443/Bombshell-new-evidence-proves-Princes-Tower-given-inside-help-escape-Richard-III.html
So many stories, so much bravery, so much luck.
A lot of anger at the Israeli defense forces for failing to respond quickly. Failure to stop it completely seems unrealistic, tho desirable. Surprise attacks are just that, a surprise.
But failure to respond quickly is a big failure of … worst case planning? morbid imagination? incompetent intelligence / overconfidence in electronic intel when the attackers are using super secure wetware — face to face meetings?
Israel’s middle class is looking a LOT like US middle class houses in So Cal. Tho not yet with swimming pools. (Nor movie stars)
Gaza could look more like that with aid used for development rather than Jew killing plans.
The safe rooms were designed only to protect from rocket attacks, which were a fairly common occurrence in many parts of Israel.
I don’t understand how they didn’t protect from gunfire (as evident from the story linked above by Barry Meislin), unless the terrorists were able to get into the safe rooms. I presume that’s what happened, that the entrances couldn’t be secured, or could be blown open.
Jimmy:
For the most part the “safe rooms” were reinforced rooms within the house itself and didn’t have locks. People held them shut, sometimes for 12 hours or so. But even if the terrorists couldn’t get in, they often just set the whole house on fire.
Tom Grey:
From what I’ve read, the failure to respond had to do with several factors. The first was that it was a holiday and a lot of people in the military weren’t on duty. The second was that the jihadis disabled some of the communications – I’m not sure of those details and I don’t think the details have been reported, for security reasons. Another is that on a nearby base that had close to 300 soldiers on duty, the terrorists attacked while they were still asleep and murdered them all. I also think that some soldiers and police did come to the area (and many were killed), but not in enough quantity because it took quite a while to realize the huge scope of the invasion – about 3,000, spread out – because an invasion it was, of an unprecedented kind.
Ofakim, be it noted, is 14-15 miles from the Gaza border.
What neo said WRT “safe rooms” not being intended to defend against intruders, but “only” against rocket and mortar attacks, which were unfortunately, all too frequent.
There is an astonishing story of a safe room that withstood the Hamas attackers—the occupants (the family + a frantic neighbor) were able to keep the door from being opened by the attackers, the husband/father with help from one of his sons kept the door pulled shut for many hours. The room also withstood the fire the attackers set to burn the house down with its occupants inside, which was a common occurrence on Oct. 7. The house actually DID burn down to the ground—around the safe room—since, somehow, the safe room did NOT burn. (Barring a belief in miracles, one can only assume it was made of fireproof materials. OTOH, I don’t know how they managed to solve the air-filtration issue.)
Not only that, but one of the family members gave birth during the ordeal.
All occupants, including the newborn, survived.