“It was like a fantasy movie, I still can’t believe I’m alive,” says Inspector Mali Shoshana, who, together with another police officer, fought valiantly in the battle for the Sderot police station, when a large number of terrorists raided the place on Shabbat Simchat Torah, October 7.
She managed to eliminate four terrorists. She lost many of her friends in that battle, and reinforcements were not coming. The terrorists who entered the police station threw a grenade, and she describes how she took it and threw it back.
Mali continued to fight.
“I was the officer on call at the Sderot station,” she relates. “I arrived at 6:30 in the morning on Shabbat, Simchat Torah. We changed shifts, I met the desk officer, the night shift, the morning shift started arriving. And while we were talking, the red color sirens started. So, we started organizing with bulletproof vests, and helmets. And then we get a phone message that there’s a terrorist infiltration from Zikim, that some terrorists were inside on a pickup truck.”
No one could believe the sight of a white Toyota truck packed with armed Hamas terrorists dressed in black who stopped by the police station and immediately pushed their way in.
“We hear light weapons shooting,” Mali continues. “One, two minutes later, we see a white pickup truck parked outside, with five, six Hamasniks with bandanas around their heads, and a firefight ensues between us and them. We returned fire. After this initial attack, we eliminated two.”
Mali and another officer began a battle for their station and their lives, and within one hour, Mali eliminated four terrorists.
“They yelled at me, ‘Mali, Mali, a grenade!’ I caught it and threw it back at them on the staircase. I asked that they tell my son I love him. Suddenly we see two climbing the stairs there and reach the door. I fired in their direction, one fell, and the other was probably injured, but he managed to shoot me. He hit the palm of my hand,” she says.
Mali figured that her ammunition was finished and more terrorists were on the way. Reinforcement was not coming yet, and what was left for her to do was play dead – for four hours.
“I put my hand over my head,” Mali continues. “I figured, if they come to verify that I’m dead, maybe the bullet, you know, will hit my hand, or won’t pierce the skull completely, to have a chance to stay alive. And I’m trembling in the cold water. And then the water washes off and I’m drenched, and the wind is freezing and I start trembling. And how can a trembling person pretend to be dead? So, I started thinking, how to continue playing dead? I tried to stop breathing for a minute, a minute and a half. And I prayed.”
It was a heroic battle of the police officer who wouldn’t surrender, and almost all of them paid with their lives. After Mali was rescued by a special police force, the battle on the station continued until it was demolished, burying the terrorists.
“Seven officers of the Sderot station, brave, heroes, who fought for our lives, their lives, did everything so we would come out of there in peace, alive. They came from home without thinking twice, and were killed by this human scum,” Mali says.
