It’s been almost six months since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, but Inor Kagno still can’t sleep.
What keeps him up at night, he said, is having been unable to save some of those pleading for help as they talked to him on their cell phones while under fire as he hid in a 15-by-15 foot bomb shelter with 250 others as semi-automatic gunfire rang outside after the initial rocket blasts.
Part of a delegation of several survivors, Mr. Kagno spoke Thursday during an event titled “Surviving Terror: Voices of Heroes” at Temple Shomer Emunim in Sylvania Township.
He also spoke of what surviving such an experience does to one’s sense of security.
“I am sitting in front of you at a conference, and I am thinking, ‘Which one of you could be dangerous and who will stand up and start shooting at me, and how much time will I have to go left or toward the window?’” Mr. Kagno said.
He did, however, take down the names and locations of those who called him on his cell phone and many others whom he managed to reach on his cell during the attack so that they could later be located and rescued, he said.
Mr. Kagno, 26, was the chief photographer of a music festival called “Supernova Sukkot Gathering,” where more than 200 people were killed by Hamas. In all, 1,400 Israelis and foreigners were killed with more than 20 points of attack on villages bordering Gaza and the festival.
He has since posted videos to social media about the Nova massacre that have received millions of views, event organizers said. These videos feature calls for help from the Nova survivors. His Instagram page is instagram.com/inorkagno.
He also spoke of videos shot by the Hamas attackers as they committed their atrocities.
As he and others hid in the bomb shelter, “the social media started running videos that those [expletive] terrorists” took as they committed atrocities, he said.
“They put cameras on their heads to show what they were doing,” Mr. Kagno said. “... And you could see what was going on maybe a kilometer away, you could see them sending grenades at ... and handcuffing people that you danced with just a couple of hours before and whose faces you can recognize, faces on the floor ... and a lot of blood.
“And you understand that you are in the same situation, because you are in a bomb shelter. And you can do nothing.”
Since surviving the Oct. 7 massacre, he has volunteered at a logistics management center to supply food and equipment to Israel Defense Forces soldiers, conducted international news interviews, and assisted in marketing and branding for the Nova community help centers.
His message Thursday was that “the future is in the survival and prosperity of the Jewish nation.”
“Through history, they tried to genocide the Jewish people, and we survive and prosper,” he said. “We had the pogroms, we had the Holocaust. … And the outcome is always the same – we survive and prosper.”
Another attack survivor, Gitit Botera of Sderot, said the message resonated with her.
She said that she saw her task in “giving a voice” to men and women murdered in the Oct. 7 attacks, as well as to those who were raped and wouldn’t speak about what happened to them.
Ms. Botera, who together with her husband and their child survived in 2021 when a Hamas rocket hit their house, also survived, along with her family, the Oct. 7 attacks by hiding in a safe room for 10 hours.
As they hid, they heard shots continuing outside, sometimes so close that she had to cover her daughter’s mouth with her hand. She finally suffered a panic attack and called a friend to come and get them because she “couldn’t take it anymore.”
Since then, Ms. Botera, 42, has been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, she said, and has been living as an evacuee in a hotel.
Ms. Botera volunteered with the Zaka Search and Rescue group at the kibbutzim and the Nova Festival grounds where the atrocities took place, saw the horrors, and heard stories of the first responders.
She also spoke of “cut genitalia all over the place,” a young woman who was raped and shot in the head and killed, “babies with their heads cut off,” and a young pregnant woman who was killed after her baby was cut out of her belly and killed.
“When you [tell] your story and the community hears you and listens, you feel strong,” Ms. Botera said. “After that, I feel resilience come back to me, and it’s very helpful.”
Rabbi Lisa Delson of Temple Shomer Emunim, who opened the event, said it’s important “for each of us not being silent” about the murders, kidnappings, and sexual violence of the Oct. 7 attacks and “to just be thankful that [the visiting survivors] are blessing us with their presence.”
Daniel Pearlman, vice president of community and government relations of the Jewish Federation and Foundation of Greater Toledo, who also helped open the event, stressed that the visiting Oct. 7 survivors were there “to share their personal stories and not to discuss politics.”
Prior to Toledo, the group of Oct. 7 survivors visited and spoke to audiences in New York, Pittsburgh, Youngstown, and Dayton. They were soon to be on their way to New Jersey, event organizers said.
The speaking tour was organized by the JCC Association of North America, the Israeli government’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, and the World Zionist Organization.
First Published March 22, 2024, 12:49 p.m.
