'It was your worst nightmare': Vancouver woman returns home from terrifying trip to Israel

Shauna Osten traveled to Israel earlier this month to visit family and explore the country. Midway through her trip, rocket blasts and alarms forced her and friends into a Tel Aviv bomb shelter.

“Right away, we knew it was different. We knew. It was very, very scary,” said Osten.

She says a rocket landed just metres away from her bomb shelter, damaging buildings and infrastructure, but no one was harmed.

“It was your worst nightmare,” said Osten, who has family and friends serving in the Israel Defence Forces.

She says during her visit she was supposed to have dinner with Vancouver’s Ben Mizrachi, who was among the 260 people killed at a music festival. 

It’s been one week since Hamas, which rules over Gaza and is considered a terrorist organization by many countries, including Canada, launched a massacre that slaughtered at least 1,300 people, many of them civilian women, children, and babies.

After 36 hours with layovers in Turkey and London, Osten returned to her Vancouver home Wednesday and is still overcome with emotion.

“If I talk about what we saw, I’ll start crying,” said Osten. “I’ve been crying for a week.”

Israel has responded with heavy force, pledging to destroy Hamas. On Friday, hundreds of Palestinian protesters marched through the streets of Vancouver, some voicing support for Israel’s enemy, which has pledged to destroy the Jewish state.

“A lot of people say they are terrorists, but they’re just fighting for their land,” said one protester.

“This is our home. This is our land. Nobody can take it. Israel, you’ve got to go. This is our land,” said another.

The Vancouver Police Department has increased its presence at protests, synagogues, Jewish community centres, and schools. On Friday, VPD confirmed a man was arrested for making antisemitic remarks Thursday morning outside Vancouver’s Talmud Torah school.