After her parents’ divorce, Neta Portal, 22, had not spoken to her father for six years.
But when Hamas militants broke into his home in the Jewish community (kibbutz) of Kfar Aza and shot him six times, He knew that he was the only person who could save his life.
Shimon Portal, who is a police officer, was at a shootout in Sderot, a nearby city, when he received the first message from his daughter: “They are close.” The massacre at the kibbutz had already begun.
We found Neta in a Tel Aviv hospital, where doctors carefully removed all the bullets: five from her left leg and one from her right.
He trembles when he remembers how he lost and regained consciousness. after the gunmen burst into the panic room and opened fire for the first time:
“They shot people. They shot the children. And people shouted: ‘Please no, please no.’ “I tried to wake up because I didn’t want to die.” Sitting next to her in her cubicle is her boyfriend Santiago – or Santi -, who is struggling to hold back her tears.
The couple had spent four months in Kfar Aza, a place they describe as the most beautiful on Earth. Their clasped hands turn white as they shake and Neta remembers what happened next.
“Santi told me: ‘Neta, please open the window. Please jump.’ “I started to open the window and saw 10 or 15 terrorists.” I could not believe what I was seeing.
“They were standing on top of a car with a big machine gun, smoking cigarettes and laughing like they were on vacation.” Neta says she and her boyfriend were afraid to jump, but when an attacker threw a grenade into the room, Santi grabbed her and they jumped out the window together.
“The terrorists saw us and started shooting as if we were nothing.” Neta received even more bullet wounds in the leg and hand. “Santiago yelled at me: ‘Please stop, start running. If you don’t get up, we’re going to die. We are going to die'”.
Santiago managed to take her to a safe place two blocks away, where they hid under a large pile of garbage, trying to remain as quiet as possible.
While Santiago silently used his shirt to try to contain the blood escaping from Neta’s legs, she managed to send a message to her father again: “Dad, they shot me. Aid”.
Also in the hospital and sitting next to his daughter, Shimon Portal tells me what it was like to receive that message. “My heart stopped. My brain started spinning. I went crazy”.
The police officer, dressed in civilian clothes, was already heading to Kfar Aza, but when he finally arrived in his unmarked car, some armed men fired shots and he responded.
Shimon turned around as bullets sprayed his vehicle and managed to drive away. He pulled himself together and tried again to rescue his daughter. This time everything was quiet, so he called Neta.
“Suddenly, three girls ran towards my car because they had heard me shouting in Hebrew. Open the door. “They started to go up at the front, but two terrorists came out of the houses and shot at us.” Shimon says he was able to escape with the three girls.
He didn’t know where his daughter lived, but he went to the place she had indicated. He then he found her. He put Neta in the back of her car and, together with Santiago, who had also been shot in the leg, they drove to the nearest hospital.
A reunion of father and daughter in the midst of one of the worst attacks that Israel has suffered. Now in the room, Shimon looks at his daughter, in a hospital gown. “My beautiful daughter. I have recovered it.”
But his relief is overwhelmed by anger and sadness. “She is a girl of peace. He only believes in peace and does not understand why they killed little children, why they burned little children in the kibbutz.”
With Neta visibly tired and her nurse going to get more painkillers, I ask her how she thinks the Israeli government should respond to the massacre of her community and other atrocities.
In this point, His suffering turns into deep anger. “Do you want the truth? I don’t want Hamas ever again in my life. We have to destroy them one by one. We have to be strong”.
So what exactly should the military do? “The army has to be inside Gaza,” says Neta. “They have to kill one terrorist after another. I want peace with all my heart, but I think there will be no peace.”
Take air. “I’m sorry to say this, but I was just at home. And they shot me in my bed.” I ask you one last question: are you thinking about the civilians in Gaza who will inevitably die in such an intense ground operation?
“I say all that for the jihadists and Hamas. My country does not want to harm civilians. I don’t want to hurt civilians. I want them to be saved. I don’t think they need to die. Like I don’t need to die. “They are like me.” “But we have to fight.”
