Australians reveal ‘terrifying’ October 7 heartbreak on anniversary

One year on: Australian Jews reveal how their ‘lives have been changed forever’ by the October 7 attacks.

Marc Rosenthal and his three eldest children will fly back to Talmei Yosef this week.

A year ago, in that same Israeli village, the family came within 400m of Hamas terrorists who went on to kill 1200 Jews – marking the biggest loss of Jewish lives since the Holocaust.

The Australian father-of-four is defiant in the face of a quickly escalating war, saying he wanted to mourn the attack with his family at their moshav, but admits nervousness after Iran’s latest onslaught against Israel.

“I’m taking kids back … the attacks happened in the Jewish holidays so we are going back for the holiday,” he said in the lead-up to the one year anniversary of the massacre.

“I will spend the day with my family as ­survivors.

“I wasn’t nervous until yesterday but I have trust in the IDF, and I believe the civilians will be much better prepared.”

Marc Rosenthal and his children – Gali, 11, Amichai 10, Aviel, 8 and Nili, 4 – at Bondi Beach. Picture: David Swift

Eldest kids Gali, 12, Amichai, 10, and Aviel, 9, will go with Mr Rosenthal but five-year-old Nili will stay behind because he is worried about handling the kids alone should something go wrong once more.

Mr Rosenthal recalls the moment he woke up to bombs flying over his small village in southern Israel on October 7 before packing his four young children into the nearby bomb shelter.

“We were staying with my relatives in Talmei Yosef to spend the Jewish holidays … I woke up just before 6.30am and we could hear loud noises,” he said.

“I thought it was fighter planes flying but it was the sound of the Iron Dome (Israel’s missile defence shield) firing the rockets straight over our heads so I woke up my kids.

“We could see the Iron Dome intercepting all the rockets over our heads and then we went to the bomb shelter.”

Despite being raised in Sydney, it was the third time the children had been forced to seek shelter from rockets.

“We weren’t using our electronics because it was a Jewish holiday, so we didn’t have an understanding of what’s going on,” he said.

“People talk about the fog of war, it’s real. Information slowly dripped in.”

Hamas terrorists came within metres of the Rosenthal family but “for an unknown reason” turned around and found other victims.

“The fighting got very close to us and very loud. We put on a movie for the kids and made it really loud,” he said.

“The terrorists came to the gate of the moshav … people from the neighbouring moshav went to protect (others) … four people got killed there. Our neighbour across the road, she’s a police officer and she was killed at the Nova party.”

Mr Rosenthal says the carnage they witnessed “was life changing”.

“It was a time of adjustment coming back to Australia.”

Dina and Greg Bloom with their daughters – Chloe, 9, Lexi, 6, and Ellie, 9. Picture: Tom Parrish

Sydney mum-of-three Dina Bloom agreed that life for Jewish Australians and Jews around the world would never again be the same.

Ms Bloom and her family were in Sydney when the attacks unfolded, watching on in horror and concern for their extensive family in Israel.

“It was extremely traumatic for us. In another life that could have been us sitting there,” she said.

“It was a really terrifying time, to be living in this era of live streaming and watching from the other side of the world. This enormous terrorist attack.”

Ms Bloom knew Israelis who were “murdered in their beds”, were killed at the Nova music festival, and others who were caught up in the carnage of the attack.

“It took days to neutralise a lot of the terrorists, and within just two days we started to see anti-Semitism on our own streets,” she said.

“Within less than 48 hours we had this horrific anti-Semitism on our streets. We were asking ourselves, ‘Where are we safe?’. We all have the natural instinct to want to protect our children … they ask questions about October 7 and the hostages, but how do you explain to children that innocent people are being held hostage by terrorists?”

The attacks were particularly hard for Ms Bloom’s father, who lost his dad in the Holocaust as a young child.

Ms Bloom, her husband and their three young daughters are going to mark October 7 with a “Mitzvah day” – a Jewish day for doing good deeds.

Australian Arsen Ostrovsky lives in Israel and visited the region impacted by the Hamas attacks in the days after October 7 last year. Picture: Supplied

Bondi-bred Australian human rights lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky lives in Israel and visited the Israeli villages desecrated on October 7 in the days after the attack.

“Everyone in Israel is a survivor, it doesn’t matter where you are,” he said.

“We live in Tel Aviv. I’ve been in bomb shelters with my family more times than I can count.”

War has come to his own doorstep in recent days with Iran’s attacks on Israel after the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

But it’s those days spent in the south of Israel witnessing the “valley of death” left behind by Hamas militants that still haunts him.

“The stench of death was unmistakeable … the food was still there from the Shabbat tables,” he said.

“There were bullet holes everywhere, the smell of gun residue, kids toys that had been abandoned. We saw cars ridden with bullet holes because people were trying to leave and were shot by the terrorists. It was a valley of death.”

Mr Ostrovsky said he went to see the atrocities for himself because “it’s important to bear witness”.

“There is no shortage of people who are denying what happened,” he said.

“There are things that I have seen that I can never forget.”

The father-of-two said he is “disgusted” and “ashamed” of protests on Australian streets mourning Nasrallah.

“I don’t know if it’s ignorance or wilful hatred, or a combination of both.”

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