October 7 horror is relived

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HAMAS ATTACK: REMEMBERED AS BLACK SHABBAT, DAY OF HORROR, CRUELTY, TORTURE

L otus Lahav woke up at 6.30am on 7 October last year to the sound of sirens. She thought it was another missile attack on her kibbutz of Nir Oz.

Unperturbed, she and her mother made their way to the safe room in the house.

But this was no air raid.

"All we could hear was gunfire and grenades," she told journalists at the Great Park Synagogue Houghton, in yesterday.

Johannesburg, Their cellphones started vibrating. Other members of the 400-strong kibbutz were reporting how they were being attacked.

Soon the messages would change to urgent pleas on how to stop the bleeding and then to find out if others were alive.

Lahav and her mother moved to secure the door to the safe room. They didn't know how to because they never locked doors at Nir Oz.

"My mother's sibling sent a message saying he had made an improvised lock for his door with two brooms, but this was her workroom, there were no brooms," Lahav said.