“I’m at a place where I feel safe”

Among those starting out at the Faculty of Engineering this academic year is Shelly Nachshon. A first-year electrical engineering student, Nachshon fled her home in Sderot on October 8^th, after terrorists nearly reached her doorstep. When the academic year started, she settled into the dorms. “The school year starting is the best thing that’s happened to me since then,” she says. “After we escaped, we wandered around for a while, my mother and I, moved around from city to city, from place to place. It was difficult to find somewhere to fit all of us, and I preferred she’d be with family, people who’d help her cope. Eventually she settled down with family in Ashkelon and I spent two months alone in a hotel in Tel-Aviv. It was awful, I was lonely, I had nothing to do, and I had to try and process and cope with everything that had happened. Now I finally have a place to go to, something to do, people to communicate with. It literally saved me.”

On October 7^th, Nachshon, like all of her neighbors, woke up to the sound of the Red Dawn sirens. She and her mother with whom she was living at the time ran into their safe room. Around 6:30 am they started to hear gunfire. “At first, we didn’t understand what was happening, so we went outside and heard people screaming about terrorists and couldn’t figure out what was going on,” she recalls. “After about an hour, the news said there are terrorists running around the city. I have to stress that on that day we didn’t have cell reception, we couldn’t communicate with people, and didn’t have electricity either for some of the time. We got our news from Telegram. We heard about the first casualties in Sderot and that people’s homes were being invaded, then the power went out. We sat there in the safe room, not fully understanding what was happening. We only left to use the bathroom, and one time my mom peeked out from behind the blinds and saw people in the neighbors’ yard. She came back with knives and bottles of bleach, and we waited, not knowing whether someone was going to break into our home at any moment. At some point towards the evening, while the battle at the police station was going on, we started hearing loud gunfire and didn’t know if that meant that they broke into the neighbors’ home and we’re next, or if it’s our side fighting back. It turned out to be our side. We live in a house, and there are plenty of construction sites around. We were worried that more terrorists were hiding there.”

Shelly and her mother were finally rescued on Sunday around noon. “We left with our three dogs, our rabbit, and the clothes on our backs, when people weren’t supposed to be leaving yet. On the way to Ashkelon we saw bodies, we witnessed the horrors that had taken place. At first, because we had dogs with us, the hotels wouldn’t take us in so we rented an apartment in Netanya to stay at. We had nothing those first few days, it was terrible. Afterwards, we got a state-funded room at a hotel and plenty of people came through and got us the things we needed,” she shares. “We’ve only been back to the house in Sderot once since, two weeks later, to grab some documents – and we only did it because we had to. We were escorted by Achim Laneshek, two cars and four armed guards. The first thing they did was scan the area for terrorists. It was very traumatic. I left the house in a panic attack that took several days to recover from. I don’t have a home yet. I don’t feel safe in my own home, and that’s what’s hardest for me nowadays.”

For Shelly, the new school year was a blessing. “They received me with open arms. From day one they understood I was evacuated from my home, and I feel like I’m getting personal treatment, I have somewhere to turn to. I was lonely, I’m not embarrassed to say that, I was terribly lonely. Now I go to lectures and see people and communicate with friends, I have a study group. I’m attending school on an Atidim scholarship which helps me fund my studies through volunteer work, and they tried to find me something to do. All of these things really got me moving forward, they filled this crazy void I had since the evacuation. It’s incredible, starting the year with this attitude. I’m at a place where I feel safe.”