EXCLUSIVE: ‘We ran for our lives’: How elderly Israeli couple completed daring escape from Hamas after being taken hostage by armed terrorists and marched towards Gaza

• Moshe, 72, and Diana Rozen, 73, defied five armed Hamas terrorists who had frogmarched them towards the Gaza border in an extraordinary getaway
• Bloodthirsty militants attacked their kibbutz last Saturday, firing rounds of machine gun fire into their shelter before taking them hostage
• Following their escape, they are now recovering in a Jerusalem hospital, where Moshe is being made new false teeth so he can enjoy the cakes he’s been sent 

When Moshe Rozen, 72, reached the edge of his kibbutz, bloodied and exhausted having been marched at gunpoint by Hamas terrorists from his home, he knew he could not go on.

‘We just turned and ran. We ran for our lives,’ he says.

Moshe’s life seemed a world away from how it had started just hours earlier when he had settled down for a day of undisturbed reading at his home in Israel, 4km from the Gaza border.

In the turn of a page, he and his wife, Diana, 73, found themselves in the clutches of terror, as barbaric militants laid waste to their home, burst into their bunker with machine guns and took them hostage in a savage attack last Saturday.

Speaking from their hospital beds at the Hadassah Medical Organization in Jerusalem, where they are expected to make a full recovery, the couple tell DailyMail.com their incredible escape story that saw a pair of pensioners defy their age, five Hamas terrorists, and most likely, death.

Diana, 73, and Moshe Rozen, 72, are recovering at the Hadassah Medical Organization, Jerusalem, after their daring escape from Hamas terrorists, who had taken them hostage

Five armed gunmen burst into their bunker after firing machine gun rounds through the door

Moshe and Diana admit they are fortunate to be alive and wanted to pay their respects to their friend and neighbor, Boaz Avraham, 61, (pictured), who was killed by Hamas during the attack

Moshe and Diana both grew up around the corner from each other in Buenos Aires, Argentina, but had never met.

It was only when they emigrated to Israel around 50 years ago that they fell in love and married.

The couple settled into the quiet life on the Nir Yitzhak kibbutz, 7km north of the Egyptian border. 

Both took up roles as teachers, while Diana was also in charge of the community kitchen, preparing up to 550 meals a day for residents.

Moshe describes the fateful morning of Saturday, October 7, as a ‘regular’ but ‘beautiful’ one, on which he, a voracious reader, had intended to enjoy a staycation of sorts.

Their tranquility was disturbed by the alarm for rocket fire, screeching overhead.

But this is a sound those living near the Gaza border have grown used to and there was no panic as Moshe and Diana made their way to the supposed safety of their bunker.

Then, at around 11am, came the first whispers of the true danger to come.

The kibbutz WhatsApp group began buzzing with warnings that Hamas gunmen had been seen stalking their perimeter.

Thinking they may have to shelter in place for a little longer than usual, Moshe and Diana armed themselves with bottles of water and barricaded themselves in.

It was all they had to defend themselves from the approaching terror. 

‘We heard suddenly everything is falling, crashing,’ Moshe says, speaking in Hebrew via a translator.

‘The terrorists were inside our home, breaking everything.

‘The two of us together, we held onto the door of our bunker with all our strength to stop them getting in.

‘Then we heard the sound of an automatic machine gun, a Kalashnikov, and both our hands were shot badly.’

The couple, who are both teachers, grew up around the corner from each other in Argentina, but had never met before they both emigrated to Israel and fell in love around 50 years ago

Moshe and Diana say they are in good spirits despite their near death experience. Diana says they have to keep their humor or they will succumb to the trauma of their terror

An injured soldier is airlifted to the Hadassah Medical Organization in Jerusalem

Five gunmen burst into the room. One appeared to be the commander, barking orders, while a mysterious sixth man, dressed in civilian clothing, loitered at the back.

‘Through our pain, the bleeding, the crying and the shouting, the commander said: “We’re taking you to Gaza!”,’ Moshe recounts, his voice reaching a crescendo to imitate his captor.

Whatever they didn’t destroy, the soldiers looted, with one even taking Moshe’s shoes so he had to march towards Gaza barefoot.

‘They pushed us, “go, go, go, go”,’ Moshe says.

The traumatized couple were led through the dense foliage that surrounds their kibbutz as they dodged nearby gunfire as fighting raged around them.

Twigs and branches tore into their gaping wounds as blood poured out of them.

But already it appeared things had not gone to plan for the terrorists. 

Moshe says they appeared ‘short tempered’ because they had wanted to drive back to the border.

But the vehicle they had arrived in had been burned out in their own attack, leaving them with a long trudge home, hostages in tow.

There was barely a word spoken on the seemingly interminable march towards Gaza, with neither party able to speak much English, let alone the Arabic or Hebrew of the opposing side.

But when they made it to the perimeter fence of their kibbutz, a little over 400 meters from their home, they were greeted by a large hole, evidently cut by Hamas earlier that day.

By now, the mysterious man in civilian clothes had disappeared, and the militants bundled through the hole one-by-one, with one soldier manhandling Moshe and Diana at the rear.

It was at this moment that Moshe realized his life would never be the same again.

To go on would mean imprisonment in Gaza, for who knows how long, at the hands of terrorists shown to have scant regard for human life.

He stood staring at his bloodied wife and at his own bloodied hands, then turned to his bloodthirsty captors.

‘We go home,’ he said, defiantly.

‘No! To Gaza!’ came the gunmen’s response.

Moshe knew to defy him would most likely mean execution. There was no way he could outrun, or outfight the terrorists.

But the alternative was even worse.

‘I thought, in any case we were going to die. Better to die on the grass of our kibbutz than in some prison inside Gaza,’ Moshe says.

So he told Diana to run. 

‘We didn’t turn around for even half a second. We just ran for our lives.

‘We had the heart, but I don’t know where we found the energy.

‘We were afraid. We expected them to shoot us in the back.’

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But the sound of gunfire never came. Diana didn’t say a word to her husband as they hurtled back to their home.

‘I was in shock,’ she says. ‘I just let Moshe take the lead. I didn’t want to hear, I didn’t want to see, I didn’t want to feel.

‘Moshe did it. Without Moshe, I would be dead in Gaza.’

When their tired legs brought them back home, there was nothing left of it.

Still, their captors could return. They knew they were not yet safe. 

The couple went to their close friends and neighbors, who were themselves hiding in their bunker, and knocked on their door, begging for help.

One of their friends, a man they affectionately nickname ‘Turko’, as his family hails from Aleppo, Syria, opened the door, despite protocol not to do so in such circumstances.

It is a known terrorist tactic to frogmarch hostages to neighboring doorsteps and have them plead for assistance, so that doors will be opened and more victims taken.

This, our translator points out, was something the Nazis did during the Holocaust.

‘He [Turko] risked his life to save us,’ Moshe says.

After what felt like forever, he adds, a military patrol arrived and took them to the nearest hospital, about half an hour away.

But upon arrival they were met with scenes of hundreds of bloodied casualties lying across corridors in a ‘terrifying scene’. 

It was clear Moshe and Diana were not going to receive the immediate attention they needed.

Eventually, they were transported to the Hadassah hospital, arriving at 4am on Sunday morning.

From the moment they reached the hospital, ‘a new world opened’ to Moshe, he says.

‘The nurse who admitted us was shocked that so many hours had gone by and we hadn’t been treated, but we went right away to surgery and our care was amazing,’ Moshe adds.

‘From sunrise, when I was going to put my feet up and read my book, to the horror of the terror attack, and now back at the Hadassah and everything is again a normal world with excellent medical care, I am still processing how that happened.’

While Moshe knows he may never fully understand the events of October 7, he and Diana still retain their spirit and humor, something Diana says is necessary to avoid succumbing to their trauma.

They have been flooded with cakes and cookies at the hospital by well-wishers, including their two sons, Yonaton, who lives in Jerusalem, and Eitan, who lives on their kibbutz, but was fortuitously on vacation when the attacks happened.

Moshe, however, has been unable to enjoy the baked treats as in their rush to shelter from the sound of gunfire, he forgot to take his false teeth.

The hospital is now making him new ones.

Diana lost a finger in the attack, Moshe nearly lost a hand. 

Reflecting on why the terrorists did not shoot them dead at that fateful moment they turned and ran, Moshe dismisses the notion that they had felt compassion.

‘I think they wanted to get out of there, they were getting nervous,’ he says. ‘Maybe they didn’t want to make any noise because they thought they might get caught. It could also be that on the other side was a car, but they had no room for us and we were so full of blood, they would have just left us anyway.’

Midday was closing in and so was the Israeli Defense Force.

Others on their kibbutz were not so lucky. Moshe wants the name of his friend, Boaz Avraham, 61, to be known.

The father-of-three ‘died a hero’ protecting the kibbutz, where he was callously murdered by Hamas.

Boaz is one of four known to have been killed at Nir Yitzhak by Hamas during the attack – out of at least 1,400 slaughtered across Israel.

Moshe and Diana are speaking to DailyMail.com on the day of his funeral, Tuesday, which they could not attend, and few did, as the kibbutz remains a dangerous place to be.

It has been evacuated since the attacks. No one knows when it will be safe to return.

Diana’s friend from the kindergarten she worked at was taken hostage, along with her entire family. Their status is unknown.

Moshe knows how close they came.

‘We are very grateful, but we are a little surprised we are still alive.’

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