In the early morning hours of October 7, sirens wailed in Jerusalem, warning citizens to take cover as missiles launched by Hamas troops headed toward Israel. At about the same time, Hamas soldiers stormed blockaded areas along the Gaza Strip and began shooting Jewish settlers and taking dozens of hostages.
At 6:30 a.m. October 7 in Israel, when the warnings sounded, it was 11:30 p.m. October 6 on the campus of Northeastern University in Boston. Graduate-student setter Inbal Peleg was sound asleep in anticipation of the next day’s home volleyball match against Delaware.
She was shaken from her slumber by the sound of her phone. As she checked the messages, she got word of anticipated missile strikes on her home country.
But, as she noted, missile warnings are not uncommon in Israel. So Peleg went back to sleep. It wasn’t until the next morning that she realized the scope of what was happening.
Three time zones to the west, Santa Clara junior outside hitter Oren Abutbul was wide awake. She was working to meet a deadline on a project for one of her classes and sought the help of her brother, who was home in Zichron Yaakov, Israel.
The response to her text, she thought, was a bit odd. Her brother said to give him a couple of minutes because there were alarms going off.
Like Peleg, whose hometown of Haifa is about 20 miles north of Zichron Yaakov, Abutbul didn’t give it much thought. It happens. So she figured she would give him an hour and then try to reconnect.
She was just glad her brother was awake so early. More time to help with her project.
In the meantime, she called her friend and fellow Israel native Mika Rome, a freshman setter at LSU. Rome told Abutbul there also were alarms going off in her home of Ra’anana about 60 miles south of Zichron Yaakov and 90 miles north of the northernmost point of the Gaza Strip.
Finally, it was time to text her brother again. The response was similar.
Abutbul said he told her things “are getting a little crazy here” and they would talk later.
So she decided to put her project on the back burner and go to bed. She, too, had a match the next day, a West Coast Conference contest against Saint Mary’s.
When she awoke Saturday morning, Abutbul saw a flood of messages on her phone and called her father immediately. That’s when she found out about the Hamas…
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