I was volunteering with Magen David Adom at the time. I was a young shift manager – not even 18 years old, but sufficiently motivated to do anything.

It was a Friday, we were at home, tidying up and getting ready for Shabbat. Suddenly the windows rattled, there was a huge explosion – a very loud noise that shook our house.

And then the silence… long, endless, as though in a single instant it had swallowed up all the oxygen, all of existence and life.

The wailing of cars. My brother and I grabbed our coats, gloves, first-aid bandages, just in case, and we ran blindly into the darkness.

People lying everywhere, tough policemen with a lost look in their eyes trying to push back the onlookers, and screams and crying and unidentified parts. The remnants of a bus and the collapsing frame of a bus-stop and a hand, on the steps, severed.

Help me! Help me!

And helpless fear. What do I do now?

And a wall, sealed up. It’ll be okay. Water, rinse it off, no bandage, we’ll stop the bleeding, it’ll be okay.

What does one do? What, what to do?

Take him; come, get up with me, don’t worry – I’m holding you, yes, to the ambulance. Come, it’ll be okay.

And we drive, and unload shreds of people, and register the injured who have been taken into the trauma unit, no details, three have gone in.

Walk home. Overwhelmed. Wanting to scream – what is this hell???? Why??? Where are You? Why?

Stop walking, stop smiling, stop yourselves. Two kilometers from here, hell has opened up. Cry out, people; go crazy. How is it that you carry on? Hell has opened up – can’t you smell? The windscreen wipers are broken, vision is limited, there’s hatred and fear and terror, and death.

At home, the smell of every type of food recalls the horror. After Shabbat, the images cut from inside: the hand, that was a real woman, and that lump next to it – the stomach? The chest? Her body? She was really here, she was really alive, and now she’s gone… That face accompanied me for months, and the smell – God, the smell – I couldn’t eat anything. Helpless.

It was scariest inside the mall: don’t crowd together, don’t smile, a week ago I saw Hell open in front of me; run away…