When Tamer Masudin heard sirens going off in his town of Ramat HaSharon on Saturday morning, he was immediately confused.
Is it Memorial Day, which honors Israel’s fallen military heroes? No, that was in May, he thought.
So the 26-year-old analyst grabbed his phone and was quickly inundated with photos and videos of the early-morning sneak attack that stunned Hamas and has since sparked an unimaginable war.
That’s when his thoughts turned to his brother, Samer. The 18-year-old high school student recently underwent a liver transplant and is recovering with his family in the city of Sderot, just minutes from the Gaza Strip.
“The first thing that came to mind was that I had to save my brother,” Masudin told The Post on Thursday.
“The kid just had a liver transplant, and he’s recovering,” he continued. “He’s in no shape to run, let alone hide from people.”
Tamer Masudin and his brother, Samer. Ihsan Tamer Musudin Masudin said he was worried about his brother – who recently underwent a liver transplant – the second he read that Hamas fired rockets and sent gunmen across the Israeli border Saturday morning. AFP via Getty Images
“I knew as soon as he stepped out of that apartment – if anyone saw him, he would be shot dead,” he said. “He’ll be gone, like, in a second.
One might think the Masudin family might be safe — even during such chaos — because they are ethnic Bedouins, a historically nomadic tribe that has roamed the deserts of the Middle East for thousands of years.
“We are traditional Arabs, not much different from Arabs from the UAE or Saudi Arabia,” he said. “We speak Arabic as our mother tongue, and we are all Muslims.”
But this attack is different, Masudin said.
Hamas attacks come by land, sea and air. Several gunmen flew in on paragliders, as pictured. X/@XTrendHunter Hamas did not discriminate between Arabs and Jews when it attacked Saturday, Masudin said. Reuters
Hamas rockets never discriminate between Arabs and Jews – they fall where they fall. But the gunmen who race across the border, slaughtering and kidnapping as they go, don’t discriminate much either.
“I saw reports of Hamas terrorists killing Muslims inside Israel after they infiltrated the border,” he said. “I was terrified as soon as I heard the news – terrified.”
Especially since Masudin’s family comes from the Bedouin village of Segev Shalom in southern Israel, just an hour’s drive from the border with Gaza.
“All my family members – my siblings, my parents, my cousins - all live in Segev Shalom,” he said. “And some of them are in the military, or called into the reserves to serve now.”
But Sderot was hit hard.
The attack — and the resulting war — has left more than 1,000 dead on both sides. AFP via Getty Images Israel has launched a counter-offensive since the initial Hamas invasion, hitting the Gaza Strip with thousands of bombs. AFP via Getty Images Civilians on both sides have been caught up in the fighting – and killed in large numbers. ALAA BADARNEH/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Gunmen burst into the city Saturday morning with their automatic rifles blazing, killing civilians and gunning it out with local police units in a battle that consumed the city.
They also captured the local police station before reinforcements from the Israel Defense Forces surrounded it and slaughtered the remaining extremists.
However, Samer was lucky.
Masudin contacted the police, and the army found Samer – after several worrying days – and sent him to his mother in Segev Shalom.
But even though the Masudin family almost escaped the tragedy, many in the Bedouin community did not.
His contacts died during the attack, either by bullets or missiles. And Hamas kidnapped dozens of Bedouins and brought them back to Gaza, he said.
A Palestinian boy is being treated in hospital after an Israeli attack on his home in Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. Ismael Mohamad/UPI/Shutterstock Hamas has reportedly killed hundreds of civilians, including these attendees at a music festival in the desert.
“We still don’t know their condition: if they’re alive, if they’re dead, if they’re injured,” he said. “All we know is that on Saturday, about 40 people from my community went missing and no one could contact them.”
But despite the daily horrors inflicted by the terrorist organization, the attacks have poisoned the well for Bedouins who may have little sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians, who are also Sunni Muslims.
“Whatever made Hamas decide to carry out this attack is basically severing that relationship, killing it and burying it deep in the ground,” Masudin said.
The war has caused untold horrors for the people of the region. Reuters
“And now, my community – apart from the fact that they are really angry – they are taking revenge on the people who did this,” he said, adding that in his view, Hamas is no better than ISIS.
“No one can justify how they burn and kill and behead babies in southern Israel and say, ‘Oh yes, this is our resistance, the fight for liberation,'” he said.
“Although it once fought for liberation … it is dead now.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
