10/7

100 Human Stories

By: Lee Yaron

Narrated by: Fred Berman

The definitive account of the 10/7 attacks through the stories of its victims and the communities they called home.

On October 7, 2023—the Sabbath and the final day of the holiday of Sukkot—the Gaza-based terror group Hamas launched an unprecedented assault on the people of Israel. Crashing through the border, attacking from the sea and air, militants indiscriminately massacred civilians in what became one of the worst terror attacks in modern history, and the most lethal day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.

A radically passionate work of investigative journalism and political critique by acclaimed Haaretz reporter Lee Yaron, 10/7 chronicles the massacre that ignited a war through the stories of more than 100 civilians. These stories are the products of extensive interviews with survivors, the bereaved, and first responders in Israel and beyond. The victims run the gamut from left-wing kibbutzniks and Burning Man-esque partiers to radical right-wingers, from Bedouins and Israeli Arabs to Thai and Nepalese guest workers, peace activists, elderly Holocaust survivors, refugees from Ukraine and Russia, pregnant women, and babies.

At a time when people are seeking a deeper understanding of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and how internal political turmoil in Israel has affected it, they predominantly encounter perspectives from the powerful—from politicians and military officers. 10/7 takes a fresh approach, offering answers through the stories of everyday people, those who lived tenuously on the border with Gaza.

Yaron profiles victims from a wide range of communities—depicting the fullness of their lives, not just their final moments—to honor their memories and reveal the way the attack ripped open Israeli society and put the entire Middle East on the precipice of disaster. Each chapter begins with a portrait of a community, interweaving history with broader political analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to provide context for the narratives that follow. Ultimately, 10/7 shows that the tragedy is much greater than the violence of the attacks, and in fact extends back through the entire Netanyahu era, which propagated a false image of Israel as a technologically advanced, militarily formidable powerhouse so essential to the region that it could continue to ignore and undermine Palestinian statehood indefinitely.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.

©2024 Lee Yaron (P)2024 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“Lee Yaron’s courageous book is a literary Shiva, a mourning for all those innocents who died on October 7. It is, as she writes, ‘a defense against distortion, a defense against forgetting.’…These stories impart a dose of tough, anguished history about all the wars since 1948 and all the missed opportunities for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. If you care about Israel, and you care about Palestine, there is no more important book to read than 10/7.”—Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Crossing Mandelbaum Gate, American Prometheus, and The Good Spy, director of the Leon Levy Center

“10/7 is a shocking but heartfelt book, whose empathy is the only way forward.”—Nicole Krauss, author of History of Love, Great House, Forest Dark, and To Be A Man

“Framed as a journalist’s first draft of history, this book is actually an elegy for those murdered, assaulted, and kidnapped on October 7. In the tradition of the biblical Book of Lamentations, Yaron deploys deceptively simple descriptive language to convey events terrible beyond imagining. The book deserves to be read as mourning as much as reportage.”—Noah Feldman, author of Scorpions and To Be A Jew Today

Heart wrenching

The narrator put you upfront with each person involved, their relationship and demise. I cried, was horrified and finally realized this is what the world has become.

Thought provoking and raw

This was hard to listen to but it absolutely had to be written. The entire world must understand what the Israeli people live with daily. I salute the author, I’m sure it was hard to write.

excellent research and storytelling, marred by mispronuncistions

Yaron's storytelling skills and professional journalistic research are admirable. Sadly it is hard to listen to the mangling of names, including some common hebrew names and even the name of BeerSheva, a major Israeli city.

Understandjng the real10/7 that you don't hear from the news

It is so sad but necessary to see the real situation and feel what the Isreal people and Nation went through