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Carrying my first dead body
Uri Avnery Social activist
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We left. We went to Hulda. How did we get to Hulda? Bet-Dagan was in Arab hands so we went through Mikveh Israel, from Mikveh Israel to Rishon Lezion, from there to Ekron and from there to Hulda. And we set up camp in Hulda. In Na'an they let us off the buses and we started to walk. The entire company, 100 or so people, walked through that terribly dark night, I remember from Na'an to Hulda. By nature I push forward, so I was in the front row. We couldn't walk in procession – it was all fields at the time – so we walked en masse. And there was someone walking next to me wearing a light shirt. I did not see his face. And suddenly, along the way, we came under fire, and the guy in the light shirt was killed.

The first dead person that I ever saw, or the first person I saw killed, and you know what it's like in the army. I was standing close to the victim so the commander said: 'You, you and you, return the body to Na'an'. We put him on a stretcher and the four of us took him back to Na'an. Quite a few kilometers through an open field. I had no idea that a dead person weighs so much; we went crazy with his weight. So we brought him to Na'an and we handed him over.

 

יצאנו. יצאנו לחולדה. איך יוצאים לחולדה? בית דגן היה בידי הערבים אז אנחנו נסענו דרך מקווה ישראל, ממקווה ישראל לראשון לציון, משמה לעקרון ומשם לחולדה. והקמנו מחנה בחולדה. בנען הורידו אותנו מהאוטובוסים והתחלנו ללכת ברגל. כל הפלוגה, מאה איש או משהו, הלכנו ברגל בלילה חשוך נורא אני זוכר, מנען לחולדה. אני מטבעי נדחף קדימה, וככה הייתי בשורה הראשונה. לא יכולנו ללכת בסך, זה היה בשדות וזה, אז הלכנו בהמון. ולידי הלך מישהו עם כותנת בהירה. לא ראיתי את הפנים שלו. ופתאום בדרך נפתחת עלינו אש והבחור הזה עם החולצה הבהירה נהרג.

 

המת הראשון שראיתי, או ההרוג הראשון, ואת יודעת איך זה בצבא, אני עמדתי קרוב אל ההרוג, אז המפקד אומר: "אתה, אתה, אתה, תחזירו את הגופה לנען". שמנו אותו על אלונקה והחזרנו אותו ארבעתנו לנען. כמה קילומטרים טובים בשדה הפתוח. לא היה לי מושג שאדם מת שוקל כל כך הרבה, אז השתגענו מהמשקל שלו. אז הבאנו אותו לנען, מסרנו אותו.

 

Uri Avnery (1923-2018) was an Israeli writer, journalist and founder of the Gush Shalom peace movement. As a teenager, he joined the Zionist paramilitary group, Irgun. Later, Avnery was elected to the Knesset from 1965 to 1974 and from 1979 to 1981. He was also the editor-in-chief of the weekly news magazine, 'HaOlam HaZeh' from 1950 until it closed in 1993. He famously crossed the lines during the Siege of Beirut to meet Yasser Arafat on 3 July 1982, the first time the Palestinian leader ever met with an Israeli. Avnery was the author of several books about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including '1948: A Soldier's Tale, the Bloody Road to Jerusalem' (2008); 'Israel's Vicious Circle' (2008); and 'My Friend, the Enemy' (1986).

Listeners: Anat Saragusti

Anat Saragusti is a film-maker, book editor and a freelance journalist and writer. She was a senior staff member at the weekly news magazine Ha'olam Hazeh, where she was prominent in covering major events in Israel. Uri Avnery was the publisher and chief editor of the Magazine, and Saragusti worked closely with him for over a decade. With the closing of Ha'olam Hazeh in 1993, Anat Saragusti joined the group that established TV Channel 2 News Company and was appointed as its reporter in Gaza. She later became the chief editor of the evening news bulletin. Concurrently, she studied law and gained a Master's degree from Tel Aviv University.

Tags: Hulda, Na’an, Mikveh Israel, Ekron

Duration: 2 minutes, 3 seconds

Date story recorded: October 2015

Date story went live: 10 March 2017