Published: 14 November 2023
Last updated: 5 March 2024
In the national trauma following Hamas’s massacre, those who query or express dissent about the government’s response are being trampled on.
A week after the October 7 Hamas attack in the south of Israel, Israel Frey, a thirty-six-year-old Haredi journalist who focusses on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, had just returned to his apartment on the outskirts of Bnei Brak, a predominantly ultra-Orthodox town east of Tel Aviv, when he began to hear noise outside. It was after 10pm, a few hours past the end of Shabbat.
Someone — he doesn’t remember who — messaged him to say that his address was circulating online, along with calls to join La Familia, a far-right group that started as a fan club for Jerusalem’s largest premier-league soccer team, in an attack on Frey’s home. When Frey tried to check if there was anyone outside his apartment door, he discovered that someone had blocked the viewfinder. The sounds in the street were getting louder.
He could hear people shouting “traitor.” They seemed to be hurling firecrackers at the building. He rushed his wife and two children, aged eight and thirteen, out of the living room, which has a large window, and frantically texted friends: “People are attacking my house. Please come and do something.”
A neighbour approached the crowd to negotiate safe passage for Frey’s family. Before the children left the apartment, Frey covered their faces with scarves so the crowd could not see them. He stayed inside, listening to the sounds of the gathering grow more frantic and rowdy, until the police approached his door at around three in the morning and told him he needed to leave.
A firecracker hit the window of Frey’s downstairs neighbour, shattering the glass. As three policemen escorted Frey out, one of them grabbed Frey’s arm and spat at him.
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