Two years after October 7th, the hero first responders of the deadliest attack in Israel’s history worry that the horrors of that day have been tragically downgraded to a footnote in history.
“People talk about Israel as if they have no idea what happened here,” said Elina Bon, a volunteer for the Israeli ambulance corps Magen David Adom.
The 31-year-old worked a 16-hour shift, treating the wounded and transporting the dead in the southern-Israeli city of Ofakim.
“When I saw those burned bodies, it was so terrible and so cruel, it took me a few days to even process what I’d seen,” Bon, who works as a study coordinator at a hospital, recalled.
“I just want the world to know about the terrible thing that happened.”
Hamas terrorists claimed 47 lives in Ofakim as part of its campaign of murder, mutilation and rape through the region — which totaled 1,195 dead and spared neither children nor the elderly.
Israel’s fierce military campaign to eradicate Hamas in Gaza has taken tens of thousands of Palestinian lives and leveled much of the strip into smoldering rubble.
Meanwhile, the fate of 48 Israeli hostages still in Hamas captivity, around 20 of whom are believed still alive, hinges on the outcome of contentious negotiations between Israeli and Hamas negotiators over President Trump’s 20-point cease-fire deal.
As the death count in Gaza grows, global sympathy for Israel, the sole democracy in the Middle East, continues to diminish regardless of Hamas’s role in starting the conflict.
According to a Pew Research poll released on October 3rd, 39% of Americans believe Israel is going too far in its military operation against Hamas – up from 31% a year ago and 27% in late 2023. A whopping 59% hold an unfavorable opinion of the Israeli government.
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Meanwhile, a sinister social media-fueled initiative by activists and conspiracy theorists has helped spread disinformation, claiming the scale of the attacks was exaggerated and Hamas bore minimal, if any, responsibility.
“Some people don’t believe that October 7th even happened,” said Alla Vaiman, 51, who worked on the same medic team as Bon that day.
“I’ve had conversations with people in Russia and other places about my experience on October 7th and they tell me, ‘You’re lying. You’re just lying,’ said Vaiman, an Israeli of Russian origin.
“Or they do believe it happened, but that it was all our fault. I tell them, ‘How?’”
For first responders like Bon, who suffers from PTSD and has difficulty sleeping, such vitriol is the ultimate slap in the face.
“I feel like it was the Holocaust, but in one day,” she said.
“It’s just so upsetting, not because of me, not because of my sacrifice, but because of all the people who can’t speak anymore.”
