In an Arutz Sheva - Israel National News interview with members of Kibbutz Be’eri, Gonny Goddard, a kibbutz member who lost both of his parents in the Hamas massacre, tells about the extraordinary way in which he managed to save his life – when he posed as one of the terrorists for a short time.
"Instructions were to lock the door and stay in the safe room. I was very worried about my parents. I took a white shirt that covered my face, so they would think I was one of them. A terrorist was standing in front of me in the middle of the road, he saw me and aimed his gun at me. Because he saw that the shirt was covering my face like theirs – he put the gun down and let me continue riding on my bike. When I got to the parents' area, I saw a lot of burnt cars and lots of dead bodies. A lot of looters were in the area and they probably thought I was one of them," Goddard recalls the moments of horror.
When he managed to get into his parents' house, everything was damaged there. "I arrived at my parents' house and everything was already burned and destroyed. I went inside and hid there for about five hours. I'm glad, in retrospect, that I didn't see my parents, who were no longer alive, because if I had, I wouldn't have been able to function."
"I hid in my parents' house because I thought that there was less chance that they would come to a house that had already been burned down. A few days after the incident we were told that my father had been murdered and later that my mother had also been murdered. We had a long time of uncertainty," he adds. "I was hoping that they would somehow survive and come back to us. But unfortunately, you can't control life 100 percent."
The past month since that day has been difficult – and has not been getting any easier, he said. "I can't digest what happened. I could easily have died, and they could easily have realized that it was me in the street. I am not taking it for granted that I am here. I feel the embrace of the people and my parents will always be with me in my heart."