|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
By: Ilana Siyance
One year has passed since Hamas’ horrific and deadly attack on Israel, which occurred on October 7, 2023.
Life has drastically changed for many who were lucky enough to survive the tragic events of that day. As reported by the NY Post, Natalie Sanandaji, a New Yorker who narrowly escaped alive that day, has been working to find new meaning in life. Sanandaji, 29, grew up on Long Island, an Iranian- Israeli, and was in attendance at the Oct 7th Nova music festival in Israel. She recalled her “endless” hours-long odyssey to survive “being shot at, rockets exploding over your head. I was running for my life,” she said. Some 370 young civilians, just like her, did not survive that day, with a total of 1,200 Israelis savagely murdered in that day alone, and many more of all ages taken as hostages.
Per the Post, after the attack, Sanandaji returned back home to New York. But life has not been the same. She used to have a career in real estate but she has stopped opting to work advocating for Israel and the Jewish community. She has been speaking publicly and addressing audiences around the U.S.A. and the globe, and warning of the threat the Islamic regime poses to the free world. “The person I was before Oct. 7 was much more naive,” she told The Post in a recent interview. “It was blissful.” “It was so much easier than who I am now.” In a quest to help herself heal, she has also returned to Israel several times since the attack. “It’s not Israel that tried to kill me. The party didn’t try to kill me. Hamas tried to kill me,” she said.
Last December, on her first pilgrimage back to Israel after the attack, she had reunited with Moshe Sati, a stranger and a good Samaritan who had piled people into his truck, saving their lives. Sanandaji was one of the people he saved. “It was like a full circle moment, going back and seeing where it all happened and the photos of all those who didn’t survive and paying my respects to them,” Sanandaji said.
On Monday, the anniversary of Oct. 7, she spent the day speaking to different audiences about her own experiences during the attack, and about the dangers of anti-Semitism and terror, in alliance with the public affairs office for the Combat Anti-Semitism Movement.
“This is what I want to do most on that day – to be a part of something that feels meaningful,” she said.
Sanandaji describes herself as naturally upbeat, and though it has been difficult, she says she has mostly been “in good spirits and happy.” Instead of considering herself unlucky to have been there on that day, Sanandaji insists she is lucky to be alive.
“I was in all the right places at the right time because every little decision I made – to turn left or to turn right or to hide or to continue running,” she told the Post. “I was actually in the right places at all the right times and that’s why I survived. That’s why I’m here today.”
Unfortunately, however, so many survivors are still suffering daily with severe PTSD, Sanandaji told the Post. “A lot of survivors are not OK,” she said. Thankfully, there are organizations that were set up to help the scores of survivors.
