Hamid Abu Ar’ar, center, and Wahid Al-Huzail, right, speak at the Joe Alon Center near Kibbutz Lahav. Photo courtesy of SPIHS.

By TANIA SHALOM MICHAELIAN

JNS

On the morning of Oct. 7, 2023, Hamid Abu Ar’ar was driving from his home in a Bedouin town in the Negev with his pregnant wife, Fatma, their seven-month-old baby and a coworker. As they approached the Ma’on Junction, eight Hamas terrorists on motorcycles opened fire on their car.

“My wife told me, ‘Hamid, I can’t feel my leg,’” he recalled. “Then she died next to me. I leaned her seat back and closed her eyes.” His co-worker was also murdered. Their baby, wounded by shrapnel, was still alive in the back seat.

Abu Ar’ar grabbed the baby and sprinted from the vehicle to hide inside a roadside electrical cabinet. For five hours, he crouched there with his baby, feeding him from a bottle he had also taken from the car. Four Hamas gunmen took cover just behind the cabinet, unaware of the two hiding inside.

“I could hear them arguing in Arabic about when to ambush the approaching IDF soldiers,” Abu Ar’ar told the audience at the Joe Alon Center near Kibbutz Lahav in the Negev, which houses the Museum for Bedouin Culture.

In a split-second decision, Abu Ar’ar opened the cabinet doors and ran toward the soldiers, warning them of the ambush—a move that the IDF has reported saved the lives of some 45 soldiers that day.

“Those monsters who came over the border didn’t distinguish between Jew, Arab or Christian,” Abu Ar’ar said. “They murdered my wife, a devout woman wearing a hijab and who left behind nine orphans. They did it in the so-called name of Islam. But their Islam is not our Islam.”

Caught In The Crossfire

He was speaking at a recent event hosted by “Stories That Bind Us: Memory and Dialogue of October 7 at Heritage Sites,” a program launched by the Society for Preservation of Israel Heritage Sites (SPIHS) with the support of Jewish National Fund-USA.

Also speaking that evening was Wahid Al-Huzail, 53, a retired lieutenant colonel in the IDF with a distinguished military record: a commander in the Bedouin Reconnaissance Battalion, decorated for bravery, and a key figure in the defense of Israel’s southern border. But it’s his civilian work — empowering Bedouin youth, supporting released prisoners and assisting victims of terror — that placed him on the frontlines once again that fateful day.

“I saw the footage—terrorists in a pickup truck driving through Sderot—and I couldn’t believe it,” he recalled. “Then the phone calls began. Families were desperate. Their sons worked in the fields, on the kibbutzim. They hadn’t come home. They weren’t answering their phones.”

Among the thousands caught in the crossfire that day were dozens of Bedouin citizens. Some were agricultural workers in the Gaza Envelope, others civilian drivers and security guards — many were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Twenty-one Bedouin were murdered in the Oct. 7 attacks, including the youngest known victim: 14-hour-old Naama Abu Rashed.

Israel’s Interior Minister Moshe Arbel granted permanent residency status to Hamid Abu Ar’ar on Feb. 21, 2024. Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Interior.

“No Support System”

Naama’s mother, Sujood, was shot by terrorists on her way to the hospital to give birth. Doctors fought to save the newborn, but Na’ama died hours after delivery.

“There was no system in place for the Bedouin population following October 7,” Al-Huzail said. “No one answered the phone. No support, no recognition. We had to build it ourselves.” So, Al-Huzail did what leaders do in times of chaos: he acted. He created an emergency war room to track the missing, organize aid, and help the wounded. With support from government ministries and NGOs, he founded a nonprofit that provides psychological counseling, financial aid, and legal help to Bedouin terror victims.

While parts of Israeli society feared unrest in Arab towns following Oct. 7, much of the Bedouin of the Negev mobilized in support of their Jewish neighbors. Bedouin doctors, nurses, and paramedics treated the wounded. Farmers delivered food and water to kibbutzim. Bedouin social workers cared for Israeli evacuees. Many Bedouin reservists reported for duty without hesitation.

“On October 7, we saw the truth: we are already living together in this land. And we choose each other.”

Listening

Liat Aviely, who manages the Joe Alon Center (which was named after an Israeli Air Force officer and military attaché to the U.S. who was shot and killed in the driveway of his home in Chevy Chase, Md. on July 1, 1973), described the evening as deeply moving.

“Heritage sites offer an objective platform, with no hidden agenda or political opinion, for people to come and hear a story and learn about legacy and history,” she said adding, “It was an extremely important event.”

“There are so many obstacles and challenges between our two peoples,” she continued. “But we live together in the same corner of this earth. The least we can do is listen and empathize. The ‘Stories That Bind Us’ event allowed us to do just that.”

Indeed, she said, the aftermath of Oct. 7 revealed more than just horror. It revealed solidarity. It revealed the humanity that endures beneath years of mistrust and division.

Since his wife’s death, Hamid Abu Ar’ar has been raising his nine children alone. He is proud of having pulled them out of despair since the attack. His own healing, he said, comes from speaking about Fatma. “Every time I speak about her, I feel that she’s still with us,” he said.

He has also made it his mission to head out into his own community to promote coexistence. “I tell them, as a devout Muslim, that nowhere in the Quran is it written that we can kill men, women and children in the name of our religion,” he said. “My children learn the Quran, but they will learn it with their eyes wide open.”

Abu Ar’ar said that he is keeping the baby bottle with which he fed his son with while they hid in that cabinet on Oct. 7. “When he’s old enough to study the Quran, I will give him that bottle to remind him of how terrorists murdered his mother while claiming it was done in the name of Islam,” Abu Ar’ar said. “I want him to seek only the truth.”

Promoting coexistence, he said, is for his children’s future. Interior Minister Moshe Arbel granted Abu Ar’ar permanent residency status on Feb. 21, crediting him with risking his life to save IDF soldiers on Oct. 7.

“We don’t just share the land,” added Wahid Al-Huzail. “We share the pain, the fears, the future. October 7 didn’t distinguish between Jew and Arab. So why should we?”