CHARLOTTE — Tamir Avraham and his wife thought their trip from Charlotte to his native country of Israel earlier this month was going to be a celebration.
“We left the U.S. for the holidays, for the Jewish high holiday to come to be with family,” Avraham told Channel 9 via Zoom.
However, Hamas launched the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust soon after Avraham arrived.
“We start to hear the alarms that mean rocket is on the way, and then I start to hear my sister screaming, ‘Come down,’” he said.
They’re in the southern part of the country, which has seen the most violence and civilian loss of life.
“We realized that a half-mile away from our house there was already a terrorist attack,” he said. “We have a shelter in the house. If something happens, we can be in the shelter.”
Avraham and his wife have lived in Charlotte for 16 years, and he owns a small business in south Charlotte.
However, he’s not sure he can return at all.
“I can’t leave my parents,” Avraham said. “They are (elderly), and my dad is handicapped. And I can’t really leave until the situation finishes.”
Avraham said he mostly stays at the house.
“I just leave for funerals,” he said. “People that I know that die. I go to comfort people that I know because many people die.”
Tamir is a former member of the Israeli military and is somewhat accustomed to life in the middle of a warzone.
However, he said that no one saw the attack coming.
“I want people to stand with Israel and support Israel and understand, this is not Israel problem like 9/11 wasn’t just a U.S. problem,” he said. “It was the whole world’s problem.”
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