‘I knew they were coming,’ says army observer

“Every one of us is going to die!” screamed Ariella Ruback (21) to her commanding officer, as she stared at the security cameras watching hundreds of armed Hamas terrorists hurtling across the border towards them.

As an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) border observer stationed at the small southern base of Kissufim, Ruback’s unit was the closest base to Gaza. It was 06:30 on 7 October, and she realised she could do nothing to stop the nightmare that was about to unfold.

Masked terrorists on foot, in trucks, and on tractors were coming in droves. “They were no more than five minutes away from us,” she recalls, reliving the day with painful clarity. Suddenly, in that moment, she found herself helplessly trapped on a tightrope between life and death.

Luckily, Ruback was rescued after several hours by specialist IDF soldier Eytan Berman (22). Both soldiers shared their eyewitness accounts in an inspiring testimony at Sydenham Shul, on Tuesday, 27 August. Their presentation was punctuated by raw video footage, vlogs, voice notes, messages, and pictures of the friends they lost that day. Thirty-two soldiers from Ruback’s base weren’t as lucky as she was.

For 14 months prior to the attack, Ruback had been stationed at the Kissufim base, one of four army bases that guarded the southern border, protecting six surrounding kibbutzim in the area.

“My 7 October started six months prior in April 2023,” said Ruback, whose job it is to monitor the southern border. “While on duty, I saw some disturbing things on the security cameras. I saw Hamas terrorists practicing how to kidnap soldiers, I also saw them timing the 300m run towards the border. I made sure to record these reports as I witnessed them from my operations room, but sadly, I don’t know what happened after that. Then on Yom Kippur, I told my friend, ‘There’s going to be a war just like the Yom Kippur War.’ I was off by only two weeks.”

“It didn’t matter when all the security cameras suddenly lost signal. I knew they were coming,” Ruback said.

Ruback also knew that on that weekend, only a third of the soldiers were on base. She realised that there weren’t enough soldiers to protect even one kibbutz, let alone the six that surrounded their base, while the Nova festival was occurring simultaneously not far away.

“As the rocket fire continued, it felt like missiles were landing right on top of us. I tried to remain calm and started calling all my friends to tell them to come to the operations room. Some girls, still in their pyjamas, had already made their way from their rooms to the bomb shelter. I told my friend, ‘Rather die from a missile than from a terrorist!’”

Ruback recalls how quickly the situation turned crazy. “The operations room soon became a field hospital. Every time I looked out from my hiding place, I saw another one of my wounded friends being brought in for help from the doctor.”

On the four other bases along the Gaza border were many girls just like Ruback, their job to observe and report from the operations room. “Not all of them were as lucky as me. Most were either shot in the bomb shelter or burnt alive. It took more than 35 days for the country to identify their remains. In the room I shared during my training with three other girls, I was the only one to survive. Today, there are about 3 000 girls watching, monitoring, and protecting the borders of Israel through security cameras, just like I do,” she said.

As Ruback recounted the brutal deaths of each of her friends that day, she paid special tribute to every fallen soldier, showing their picture, saying their name, and pouring her heart into the many personal anecdotes of their shared friendships and fights.

At 21:30 that evening, Ruback and the few remaining soldiers still alive were rescued by Berman, who was serving as second commander in a specialist unit.

“Everyone is gone, everyone is dead!” Ruback kept repeating to Berman, soon after he arrived promising to get them out alive. Which he did.

Eighteen months of training for the special forces couldn’t have prepared him for that day, Berman said.

His commander woke them up at 07:00 saying, “It’s war, get your equipment, we’re heading south!” and within 30 minutes they were on their way.

“As we get closer, I see clouds of smoke. I’m looking at the streets, seeing dead bodies, civilian cars with bullet holes in them, terrorists with cars filled with ammunition, and I’m thinking, ‘This is my country, the place I’m supposed to feel safest in,’ Berman recalled.

When his commander ordered the unit to clear an army base that had been captured, Berman couldn’t process it. “Our base? The strongest army in the world has been captured by Hamas terrorists?”

Only when he entered the Kissufim base and saw IDF soldiers lying dead at the entrance, inside, and all around the base, did he know it was real. He devised a plan to secure what remained of the base with the help of satellite phone imaging. Killing a few terrorists and losing a few of his best friends was simply part of the reality.

“By 01:00, we had got the surviving soldiers out on foot and went back to rest, before going back in to fight four hours later, and for the rest of that week, and for the next six months in Gaza,” he told the stunned community of South African supporters.

Ruback and Berman’s stories are buoyed by the courage and gusto of the many lives lost that day. “I have no choice but to live without my friends, but I live for them too now,” she says.