Laura Kader Blajman is one of the survivors of a Hamas attack on the Noah festival grounds in Israel on October 7. A month after the massacre, she recalled wanting to die rather than be taken hostage by the Islamist group.
On the day of the attack, she says she hid in a caravan with her husband and friends for about six hours. A month after the attack, on the 5th, Laura returns to the caravan in search of answers to her survival.
“They saw people inside the caravan. My husband was speaking Arabic and heard them saying: ‘There are alive inside, come here’. At that time, we were saying goodbye to each other. I prayed to die and die. Soon, because I would rather die than be taken hostage to the Gaza Strip. I knew,” the survivor recalled to Reuters.
Laura says Hamas men tried several times to open the door. They could not get into the caravan after breaking the lock.
“I was hoping to get an answer here, but I don’t think my questions were answered. It doesn’t explain why I survived, it’s all plastic, it’s meaningless, but somehow it saved our lives,” the woman told the news agency.
Laura, who says she can’t sleep, says she can only sleep if she knows her friends who were taken hostage in Gaza are still alive.
“Hardcore explorer. Extreme communicator. Professional writer. General music practitioner. Prone to fits of apathy.”