Bedouins: Zeadnas saw one family member killed, four kidnapped and another hailed a hero for saving dozens from Hamas de

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/04/between-two-flames-the-bedouin-family-that-came-to-embody-tragedy-and-courage-on-israels-darkest-day

Between two flames’: the Bedouin family that came to embody tragedy and courage on Israel’s darkest day

The Zeadnas saw one family member killed, four kidnapped and another hailed a hero for saving dozens from Hamas death squads, yet as a community their position is far from simple

Israel-Hamas war – live updates
Rory Carroll and Sufian Taha in Rahat
Sat 4 Nov 2023 08.00 EDT

…

Abdul Zeadna, 29, was taking a weekend break from his factory job and camping on Zikim beach, two miles from Gaza. He was shot so many times that his corpse looked like it had been “smothered” in bullets, said a relative.

Yosef Zeadna, 53, a dairy farmer, was abducted from a kibbutz with his daughter Aisha, 16, and sons Hamza, 21, and Bilal, 24, and taken to Gaza. Hamas posted a photo of Hamza and Bilal lying on the ground, stripped to the waist, guarded by armed men.

Another Yosef Zeadna, a 48-year-old minibus driver, had been due to collect seven young women from the Supernova music festival that afternoon. Alerted by their texts and calls to an unfolding massacre, he raced to the scene, packed 31 people into his 14-seater and sped away through fields, avoiding gunfire from Hamas death squads. Other festival-goers in their own cars followed him and also reached safety.

…

Bedouins are trapped in a vice, he said. As Israeli citizens, they pay taxes and serve in the IDF but suffer abuse from Jewish settlers and prejudice from the state, which has ignored requests for shelters, despite their city’s vulnerability to Hamas rockets.

…more…