DIARY: Under siege by Hamas militants, a hometown and the lives within it are scarred forever

By MOSHE EDRI
Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — There’s a saying among us video journalists: May the news stay far from your home. But on Saturday Oct. 7, it came terrifyingly close to my hometown. While I live in Jerusalem, where I work as a cameraman for The Associated Press, I was raised in Ofakim, a working class, tight-knit city a half-hour drive from the border with Gaza. My parents, parents-in-law and siblings still call it home. When hundreds of militants poured over the border from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel that Saturday, I was staying with my wife’s parents, marking the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, a jubilant festival that will from now on be remembered as the country’s darkest day.