WHEN SHAY BENJAMIN’S FATHER RON WENT MISS-ing on October 7, she cried for 15 hours straight. She was in Dubai, returning from a vacation in the Philippines, when a flurry of cellphone messages alerted her to the unfolding events in Israel on October 7 last year.
A keen sportsman, Ron, 53, from Rehovot, had gone that morning for a group bicycle ride by the Gaza border, near Kibbutz Be’eri. The cascade of rockets he heard above him prompted him to leave a voice message for his daughter at around 6:30 a.m. to say that he was fine but would head back home.
“I was a bit scared but I thought it’s just another round of missiles and rockets—unfortunately we are used to that in Israel,” Shay told Newsweek.
But she knew something was awry when her call to him 15 minutes later went unanswered. He
