Anat Harari received her long-awaited closure when she heard that the IDF eliminated Fadi Dewik, the terrorist who injured her and murdered four Israelis in a 2002 terror attack in the West Bank settlement of Adora near Hebron. Twenty-two years later, Harari said that October 7 has dredged back the trauma.
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IDF soldiers operating at Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City
(Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)
You were moderately injured in this event. How long did it take you to recover? How much did October 7 really set you back?
"I was in the hospital for six months, and after that, I started treatments that ended only two years ago, that is, 20 years of treatments. Post-trauma is for life, it doesn't go away. It's daily coping with reality. What happened on October 7 is that my reality became everyone's reality and I felt now more understood."
"I told her I'm okay because now everyone understood what I've been saying for 22 years"
You saw the terrorist with your own eyes and hid in the bathtub, being trapped when there's a terrorist beyond the door, dressed in IDF uniform.
"Yes, both of them were dressed in IDF uniforms, they stood in front of me, I saw that he was killed last weekend, I saw him shooting and killing someone else, a resident of the settlement, and then I encountered the second terrorist and I was also injured. And I hid in the bathtub."
Is there closure now that he's eliminated?
"Definitely. It's not a 'wow' feeling, but still, it's a very justified closure. This person murdered four people and severely injured seven, some of the wounded did not survive."
You said that people finally understood you after October 7. People were surprised by the sheer evil. You weren't surprised, that evil existed 20 years ago and now in the West Bank as well.
"Right. Immediately on October 7, my social worker called me to ask how I was. I told her I was fine. So she sent my clinical psychologist to prod me on my condition. She said to me 'how are you okay, you're in a psychiatric hospital.' I told her I'm okay because now everyone understood what I'd been saying for 22 years. It's baseless evil. It's generations of indoctrination, based on generations of hatred, I have no other explanation, no other logic."