Speaking before a crowd of nearly 3,000 in Beachwood, Rotem Sadeh recounted the moment her family was forced to hide from Hamas militants.
BEACHWOOD, Ohio — The pictures out of Israel are still daunting. On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas militants killed some 1,200 people at a music festival and nearby communities.
“We got a message saying the terrorists had arrived,” Rotem Sadeh, a survivor of the attacks, said Monday during a gathering outside the Jewish Federation of Cleveland marking a year since that tragic day. “This message was accompanied by screenshots from the building’s front camera where terrorists could be seen breaking the glass.”
Sadeh lived in Sderot, the closest community in Israel to the Gaza strip. She with her husband and two kids hid in a safe room as they heard gunfire and explosions outside her apartment, with militants going door to door.
“We lived on the first floor,” Sadeh recounted, with tears in her …