BGU & YOU | NOVEMBER 2023

in-law whose husband was called up for reserve duty is staying in Kibbutz Tzova near Jerusalem. Another brother and his wife are in Tel Aviv. So if her younger brother, Gal, 24, gets leave from his reserve duty up north, he has nowhere to go. So, Ester keeps a safe place at Ben’s parents’ house for him. A long history with Gaza It is often forgotten that many of the families who live around Gaza once lived in Gaza in Gush Katif. Ester was born and raised until the age of 10 in Rafiah Yam, “an idyllic spot in the southernmost corner of Gaza right on the water. We were just 24 families.” Of her childhood, Ester says, ironically, “it was a great place to grow up. We had no worries. There was a kind of innocence about us. The backdrop of our lives was soldiers and jeeps, but we felt safe.” After the disengagement in 2005, her family moved to Moshav Mavki’im. Ester, who turns 28 this week, is one

of five siblings, with two older brothers and two younger brothers. Omri, 32, was called up at the beginning of the war. She thinks he is in the north. Periodically, he sends a message that he’s going dark for a while and will be unreachable. Growing up in Mavki’im, Ester and her friends spent most of their time outdoors. Birthdays and graduations were always celebrated on the Zikim beach, where terrorists came from the sea on that fateful Saturday. Some of the terrorists stopped there had detailed plans of the layout of Mavki’im, which house was whose and who had a dog, in their pockets. “I know every street, every turn, they needed to come through to get to Kfar Azza, to Sderot. When I saw a picture of a terrorist jeep on a street in Sderot, that really got to me, because I know exactly where they had to go to reach there. Those were the streets of my childhood, and it’s hard knowing that these terrorists traveled the same route sowing destruction,” she says.

The Cohen Family in better times. Left to right: Matan, Omri, Ofek, Ester, Gal, Osnat, and Moshe. 2020. Photo: Courtesy

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