‘Evil walked the earth’: The day hell came to a Sydney woman’s family

A year after the October 7 attacks reignited the war between Israel and Hamas, Sydney’s Jewish community gathered at a candlelit memorial on the shore of Sydney Harbour to commemorate those killed and taken hostage.

“It was a day when evil truly walked this earth,” said David Ossip, President of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies. “We are still processing this modern-day pogrom.”

Melissa McCurdie, who lost several members of family during the October 7 massacre.Credit: Janie Barrett

While debate rages within and without the Jewish community over Israel’s military response, which has inflicted massive casualties on civilians in the occupied territories, those attending the vigil were united in grief for the victims of October 7 and in their calls for the hostages to be released.

Among these present was Sydney woman Melissa McCurdie, who was due to visit Be’eri, a farming community in southern Israel, in October last year to see the 13 members of her extended family who had made their homes there.

But the township, known as a left-wing community involved in peace activism and humanitarian support for Palestinians, was devastated in the first hours of October 7, when fighters from the Nuseirat Battalion of Hamas burst out of Gaza on motorcycles and attacked.

“Three of the family were brutally murdered,” McCurdie said. “The rest were taken hostage. One, an elderly lady, was able to stay locked in a safe room the whole time and she survived.”

The attackers were accompanied by a camera team who filmed many atrocities. Many families were killed in their homes with bullets and grenades. A 10-month-old baby, Mila, was shot dead while being held by her mother.

Residents, later supported by Israeli troops, fought back with whatever weapons they could. When the attackers and a crowd of civilian looters from Gaza were finally driven off after about 22 hours, 101 Israeli civilians had been killed in the village and 32 hostages taken.

“It is unimaginable,” McCurdie said. “Then the waiting and not knowing, the worry for the hostages, for all the hostages.”

McCurdie asked that the names of her relatives taken hostage not be published, in case publicity were to affect their chances of release or escape. Some were released after months in captivity, the fate of others is unknown.

“There’s been no sign of life, no information, no communication with the Red Cross,” said. “The waiting is unbearable. It’s unbearable,” she said.

“What was their crime? That they were born Jewish?”

At Sunday’s ceremony, held at Dumaresq Park in Rose Bay, prayers were read from a book salvaged from the ruins of Be’eri.

As the scenes of horror unfolded in Kibbutz Be-eri, more Hamas detachments pushed past the village to attack the Nova music festival at nearby Re’im.

Michal Ohana had been dancing at the festival for three hours with a group of friends before a rocket attack warning sounded at 6am. She had recently arrived from Portugal to see her sister, who had just given birth in an Israeli hospital.

Michal Ohana, who survived the Nova music festival massacre.Credit: Janie Barrett

“They stopped the music and told everybody to get out of the area, so we got in a car. We thought that because we were so close to the [Gaza] border, the rockets would probably fly over our heads,” the 27-year-old veterinary nurse said.

“Then at about 8am I started hearing gunshots. I started to feel that something very bad was happening. Then for the first time we saw people screaming and running. We had to get out of there. We started driving but after two minutes we saw the terrorists. They shot all over the car.”

Ohana and her friends started to run across scrub and open fields.

“My body was in such a state of panic. For the first time I could see people falling on the ground. I just froze, then sat on the ground. I started to take a video. If somebody found my phone then maybe they could see on the video what happened,” she said.

The vigil at Rose Bay.Credit: Janie Barrett

“At this point I saw and IDF tank so I ran over to it.”

The Israeli tank crew had already been killed or captured and the vehicle was abandoned. But there were still weapons inside and one of Ohana’s friends seized a firearm and began to take aim at the Hamas militants who were roaming the fields nearby.

Soon the tank was peppered with bullets. Ohana was hiding underneath the tank, between the tracks. A bullet struck her in the leg and shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade wounded her in the stomach.

“I didn’t feel anything, because of the adrenaline. But I saw that I’m bleeding. I remember calling my mum. I said ‘Mum, I love you. I’m bleeding and I think I’m going to die.’ She started to cry because she can’t help me. I prayed to God. ‘Please God, I don’t want to die, not today, not like this’.”

Bullet holes in the window of a kindergarten at Kibbutz Be’eri days after the Hamas attack.Credit: AP Photo

For seven agonising hours, the group of young friends hid beneath and behind the tank as the killing continued around them and the militants hunted for more victims. While the hunt went on, Ohana and others looked at social media feeds on their phones and saw posts from Hamas militants on Telegram boasting about the slaughter.

Around 5pm, Israeli troops reached the group. Ohana was evacuated to the hospital where her sister was nursing her newborn baby.

“I feel like I was born again on October 7,” Ohana said. “I am living to tell my story.”

“But … I lost 10 of my friends. Two of my friends were kidnapped and are still in Gaza until today.”

Around 1175 Israelis and foreign nationals were killed in the October 7 attacks, over 3400 were wounded, and 247 soldiers and civilians were taken hostage.

At the vigil, some hugged during prayers for peace and the safe return of hostages, some held hands or wept, and others stood silent.

“What happened that day is forever seared in our souls,” Amir Maimon, Israel’s ambassador to Australia, told the memorial. “These are not just memories, they are wounds we carry with us.”

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