Rude awakening – Israeli woman marries Gaza ‘boyfriend’ and barely survives

Batia Holin is an Israeli photographer and peace activist who lived in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, a few kilometers from the Gaza Strip. Long ago, she befriended a Palestinian from Gaza who also took photos and claimed to be a peace activist. Despite their closeness, the two could never meet due to strict border rules.

Joint photo exhibition
They communicated via text and voice messages and both took photos from their side of the border: he from Gaza, she from her kibbutz. In February, there was even an exhibition of the photos of Batia and the Palestinian, the Times of Israel reported. For security reasons, the man in the report remained anonymous. He was unable to attend the opening of the exhibition and sent Batia a letter instead. In retrospect, it reads like a complete travesty.

There are people around him who have something against their cooperation, the Palestinian wrote. But he’s taking the risk because he hopes this project can “improve mutual understanding, quality of life and safety on both sides of the fence.” He hopes that through his photographs, Israeli society can see that the people of Gaza are “not fighters and terrorists.”

After the successful photo exhibition at Kibbutz Nachal Oz, Batia Holin and the alleged Palestinian peace activist even planned another show in San Diego, California.

Information passed to Hamas
But the rude awakening came on October 7. The Palestinian called the woman, asked where she was, whether there were Israeli soldiers in the area and how many there were. Then it dawned on the Israeli that her “friend” was not her boyfriend, as she described to Israeli broadcaster Reshet 13. He had apparently been collecting information about her and her village for Hamas. He had forwarded the photos that Batia took of her kibbutz to the terrorist organization.

The peace activist’s idealism has given way to bitterness: “There is no one who is not involved,” the woman said in the interview about the massacre by Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.

Survived in the bunker
When the terrorists attacked the village of 700 inhabitants, the 70-year-old woman narrowly escaped into a bunker. She stayed with her partner for 24 hours without water or food. When they left the shelter, they found the kibbutz destroyed.

Batia feels betrayed not only by her Palestinian ‘friend’, but also by the Israeli army, she told the Israeli online newspaper ‘Davar’. The soldiers who had to protect them were completely unprepared. They were all killed at the entrance to the kibbutz. The heavily armed Hamas fighters carried out a massacre of the residents. More than a hundred people were murdered, including women, children and the elderly.