The Lapidots have not heard from Tiferet since Saturday; her cellphone GPS indicates that she’s in Gaza.
“Do you know the song, ‘You are my sunshine?’ This is Tiferet. Tiferet is our sunshine,” Galit Goren said of her niece, who was kidnapped by Hamas on Saturday.
Goren, Tiferet Lapidot’s aunt, told National Review over the phone on Thursday morning from her home in Ramat Gan that her niece attended the Tribe of Nova music festival along the Gaza border on Saturday with some friends.
The concert was attacked in the early morning hours on Saturday by Hamas operatives who had breached the Israeli border. As of Tuesday, more than 260 bodies were discovered strewn across the grounds, many ostensibly executed on sight. Civilians fleeing in vehicles were shot point-blank as congestion blocked the exits. An unknown number of concertgoers were also kidnapped and forcibly taken to the Gaza Strip as hostages.
The last time Tiferet spoke to her family was at 9:30 that morning, when she was able to reach her mother, Sarit, an observant Jew, who normally would not use electronics during the Sabbath.
“They’re religious, so it’s a miracle that her mother took the phone and spoke with her. She was speaking with her mother, and she said that they’re shooting and she’s hiding.” Goren recounted Tiferet telling her family that she had witnessed Israeli police engaging with Hamas terrorists who had infiltrated the border. Sarit told Tiferet to stay by her phone, but “she said that her batteries are really low and she can’t speak” as they hid by a bar.
The Lapidots have not heard from Tiferet since Saturday morning, and, according to Goren, her phone’s GPS locator is now saying it is in the Gaza Strip. There are an estimated 150 hostages in Gaza, and Hamas has vowed to begin executing them in retaliation for Israeli air strikes.
For now, the Lapidots’ only comfort is the memory of Tiferet.
“Wherever she goes, she lifts the room with laughter. I’m not saying that because she is missing. She is really special,” Goren said. “She’s bursting all the time with laughter. And everybody’s hugging her, and she’s hugging everybody. She’s so clever. Wow. Especially funny.”
Tiferet’s family lives in Harish, a small bustling town in northern Israel less than an hour’s drive from Haifa.
“It’s a beautiful community,” Goren tells NR. “I think Tiferet’s parents were one of the first people who came to Harish 20 years ago.” Sarit had lost her brother 20 years ago in an attack in Gaza.
Goren recalls Tiferet’s wanderlust and love of travel, from volunteering in South Africa and teaching English to touring Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand. “Then she came to Australia, and she fell in love” with the country. Tiferet planned to return to Australia on Monday to work and travel with friends.
On Sunday, the family had planned to throw a surprise 23rd-birthday party for Tiferet before her trip. “And when she had her birthday, it was very sad.”
At least 1,200 Israelis have been killed since Saturday, and the country has mobilized for war. The military has called up a record 360,000 reservists, tens of thousands of whom have massed on the Gaza border, as the Israeli Air Force has pounded the Strip.
As Israelis struggle to grapple with the scale of the disaster, Goren said, “It seems like everybody is post-trauma. I’m serious.”
“It’s not a good idea to go out of the house now. People are really, really sad. Everybody is really sad. Everybody’s doing something. Everybody’s volunteering. They’re sending food. I think everybody is doing something to not be with themselves,” she said.
The scale of the trauma is “much worse” than the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which broke out nearly 50 years to the day before the most recent attack.
“And people are broken,” Goren added. “Some of us do not feel protected. I think it’s the most serious thing that we have happened here in Israel in all the years that we have been here. It’s much worse than the Yom Kippur War. Much worse.”
It is in Israel’s darkest hour, however, that Goren has found some of the most redeeming displays of humanity. “I can personally say to you that I’m feeling a bit split because I understand, what happened here. I mean, the people who did Daesh [ISIS] things; the cruelty is so bad, I think, we don’t understand because we didn’t hear all the stories.”
“But the other thing that I feel, is that here in Israel, people are good to each other. They want to give each other. I’m getting calls from hundreds of people. Everywhere people reached out to me and asked me how they can help us. I see that the people, they have a big heart and they want to help with a good heart. So it’s a big split.”
The beauty Goren has seen over the past few days applies especially to Tiferet. Goren wants her niece “to be compassionate to herself. Remember each and every one of us; remember our eyes looking at you with love. We are here for her.”
“We’re not, like, on the floor. We’re really strong because we’re waiting for her to hug her and to kill her with our love.”
“Me and my three brothers, and all the family, and the big family, we are together,” Goren reassured. “You know, sometimes in the room, we can hear a lot of laughter, and then you understand that they’re talking about Tiferet; we call her Tifi.”