Amir Tibon on How His Family Survived the Hamas Massacre
When I first heard that Israeli civilians were being massacred on the country’s Gaza border, I thought of my friend Amir Tibon. Amir is an exceptionally talented journalist who is fluent in Hebrew, Arabic, and English, and has devoted his life and skills to humanistic coverage of what can often be a dehumanizing region. His writing includes award-winning reporting on efforts to achieve a two-state solution and a biography of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. On Sunday, I didn’t know whether he was alive or dead. That’s because Tibon lives in Nahal Oz, a small community bordering Gaza that has no Iron Dome missile defense to protect it. On Saturday, it came under mortar fire from above and was invaded on the ground by Hamas terrorists. During their incursion into Israel, they murdered more than 900 Israelis, while brutalizing and kidnapping many others, most of them civilians. The death toll is continuing to rise. Tibon and his family survived the indiscriminate slaughter, but only after enduring a horrifying ordeal. Just before he put his two …