Presenter Andrea Kiewel (“ZDF Fernsehengarten”) is currently in her adopted home of Israel – even when a state of war was declared there on Saturday (October 7th) after a terrorist attack by Hamas. In the “Jewish General” Kiewel reports on her dramatic experiences that day in a live ticker. And her feelings – her husband is a reservist and is being drafted.
Seven o’clock in the morning on the day of the Hamas attack
It all started at seven in the morning with an ominous message from Kiewel’s future mother-in-law and a wailing siren that shortly afterwards forced her into the shelter of her apartment. Kiewel describes her hands shaking and tears streaming down her cheeks as she watched the sound of intercepted missiles pass through the Iron Dome, Israel’s missile defense system.
Solidarity household community
After initially assuming it was another rocket attack from Gaza, something she had become accustomed to over the years, this attack turned out to be “different.”
At 7:30 a.m. Kiewel writes: “Terrorists have broken through the border with Israel and are killing women, men, children and soldiers in the towns and kibbutzim in the south. They take hostages and race through the streets firing volleys from their machine guns. Scenes like from horror films.”
How could this happen?
The sympathy from Germany was significant, but Kiewel, as she writes, was lost in her pain and anger. Kiewel raises questions: How could this attack come about? Where was the army? Why were Mossad and Shin Bet unprepared? In the middle of it all, a personal crisis – when the man she loves joins the defense effort as a veteran and reservist.
At 10:30 a.m. she writes: “There have been clashes in the West Bank for months. Arabs against settlers. Settlers against Arabs. Terror. Murder. Dead. Injured. The fire is lit and oil is poured onto the fire. The Israeli government does not speak a word of power to its violent settlers. As well as? Their party is in government. It would be like shooting yourself in the foot.”
“Anyway, that’s what I discuss with my Israeli friends. Because we all, in unison, ask ourselves how it can be that Israel, exactly 50 years after the Yom Kippur War, is once again so vulnerable, so vulnerable.”