‘If I let them derail my life, they win. If I am not getting back to being a functioning human being, then they win,’ Omri Lendler said of the terrorists.
“Life is stronger than everything,” Omri Lendler said nearly a week after 1,300 Israeli civilians, including several friends of his, were slaughtered in the worst single-day assault on Jewish life since the Holocaust.
Lendler, a finance professional based in Tel Aviv, has struggled to process the reality of narrowly escaping the rampaging Hamas terrorists and attending the funerals of friends who weren’t so lucky.
“It is our duty to tell the world what happened,” Lendler said in an interview with National Review conducted less than a week after Hamas terrorists slaughtered 260 concertgoers at the Nova music festival in southern Israel. Israelis must “continue living happy lives,” he said. “To thrive, to build, to develop. This is our duty as survivors.”
Of the more than a dozen people with whom Lendler attended the Nova music festival, two have been declared dead.
“I was at a funeral today,” Lender said. “The situation is very surreal. I could never have thought that I would need to bury my friends. Definitely not at my age.” A couple are still missing, but, “to be honest, the situation doesn’t look too compelling, unfortunately.”
Readjusting to the relative normalcy of wartime Tel Aviv has been bumpy for Lendler. “I’m sleeping kind of okay. I’m eating kind of okay. I don’t have too many flashbacks,” Lendler said. “I’m feeling sad for the people who came to dance with me and were murdered or kidnapped to the Gaza Strip. We came to celebrate life, and we were attacked by people who came to celebrate death.”
Lendler arrived with his friends at the concert at 2:30 a.m. We ”built our little camp,” he said. Then they headed out to party. He had been going to trance music events for years and was looking forward to partying in the desert with his friends. “I love the sense of happiness, the sense of freedom, the sense of acceptance,” he said. “It’s a place that you can walk into and and just be your defenseless and true self for a couple of hours. It’s an amazing experience and a very loving community.”
“Everything was amazing” until 6 a.m. when missiles began flying overhead, and a voice over the loudspeaker instructed people to leave immediately. Bullets whistled in the night air as Lendler and his friend hopped into an Israeli’s pickup truck, speeding away from the carnage. They passed “a truck full of terrorists” who sprayed their vehicle with bullets. Fortunately, no one was seriously harmed.
Searching for security, the car kept driving. That was when Lendler saw a Hamas terrorist kill a man with a knife. “He was filled with blood, and [the victim] was just drowning in his own blood, and he had such a smile on his face like he was enjoying this. I couldn’t comprehend how someone could enjoy taking a life so much.”
Seeing an Israeli military tank, Lendler sought shelter nearby but quickly fled after realizing the tank was drawing fire from the terrorists. He ran to a nearby tree line 200 yards away, passing “bodies with bullet holes, burned bodies, bodies with kitchen knives inside of them, burned vehicles.”
“The situation was so surreal. I couldn’t believe I was seeing this with my own eyes, and I couldn’t believe all of this was happening inside the borders of Israel.”
Lendler hid in a bush beside an orange field, digging himself “a little foxhole” and camouflaging his clothing with dirt and twigs. “I was in there long enough to know what the birds sounded like on the branches, what the cat sounded like.”
“And then I heard the sound of leaves and twigs breaking under someone’s boots.” An approaching terrorist was searching for more victims. He rustled the branches near Lendler. “Your first instinct is to pick your head up. To look, to see who it is. I told myself, ‘Don’t move — don’t look, don’t move your ribcage when you breathe — just stay still.'”
“I was sure I was about to catch a bullet in my head. I closed my eyes. I thanked my friends and my family for the amazing life that I had so far. I hoped that my family, my mom, my sister, my friends, could have long and fulfilling lives, and that they would be able to recover from this as fast as possible.”
The terrorist moved on without noticing him.
Lendler waited in the bush for nearly five hours until the sound of helicopter wings chopping overhead and the shooting died down. His father picked him up from a nearby police station. His mother had thought he was dead.
Despite the trauma Lendler witnessed in the hours after the terrorist assault, the harrowing episode has clarified the meaning of life and the importance of living with no regrets. “I think the goal of terror is to make the citizens afraid, to derail the lives of people.”
“I would never let terror derail my life. If I let them derail my life, they win. If I am not getting back to being a functioning human being, then they win. If I’m afraid to be in public places, they win.”
“For the sake of everyone lost, we can never let them win,” Lendler said.
Many Israelis have been similarly moved by the tragedy to lend a hand in any way they can. “I’m speechless how people came together, how people are helping one another, how no one sits idly at home, and everybody’s looking for something to do,” Lendler said. “Whether it is to help the soldiers or to help people who are traumatized.”
The unity Israel has displayed after years of divisive elections and political instability has left a deep impression on Lendler. “The entire state is coming together as one entity, as one unit, to help us move through this difficult time. And at the same time, I think our government holds the full blame. This is not a time to criticize. We will need to criticize and investigate once we will emerge victorious.”
He added, “The main thing for me is that I’m completely speechless from all the acts of bravery and chivalry and kindness that I’m seeing from the Israeli people.”