“I heard the boom, and then the pressure came, and that was it. I was out,” is how former Kaizer Chiefs striker, Ibezito Ogbonna, remembers the moment after a Gaza rocket hit the Ashdod apartment building where he and his family live.
“There was the smell of gas. And everywhere was messed up. The glass was all over. Everything was in a mess.”
The Nigerian soccer player says he’s lucky to be alive. It was around 14:00, and he, his Israeli wife, and two young daughters aged five and two-and-a-half, were in the middle of eating. After a six-hour lull, Hamas started launching barrages of rockets at southern Israel. The ceasefire was still four days away.
“All I can remember is that when the siren came, I was just doing the usual. And then I was in-between the washing machine and the dining table and there was glass everywhere in front of me. I remember feeling a push like a pressure pushed me all the way to the sitting room, like it picked me up from the seat.”
After Ogbonna regained consciousness, the first thing he did was look for his wife and children.
“My wife grabbed the kids and ran to the bathroom. We didn’t even have enough time to run down to the bomb shelter and in the end, we were really lucky that we didn’t try, because I guess we would have got hit so badly, maybe we wouldn’t have survived. The rocket pulled out all the doors, even the security door was out. Can you imagine the pressure?”
Fortunately, Ogbonna’s wife and daughters were unharmed, but the 38-year-old was rushed to hospital with injuries. Two weeks later, he is still going for check-ups as he is having problems with his hearing. He is also on heart pills and doctors have identified sounds in his head. His daughters are suffering flashbacks.
“People, rescuers, paramedics, and the fire service responded immediately. Everywhere was packed. They were trying to help everyone evacuate from the building because it was almost on fire. We were just lucky that the rocket didn’t hit close to the building’s central gas network. It was only a few meters off. If it hit that, I don’t think any of us would have survived.”
Ogbonna came to live in Israel four years ago to marry his long-time girlfriend, Katia, whom he met more than a decade ago when he played soccer for Hapoel Tel Aviv. He still has Israeli fans, not least because during the four seasons he played for the club, he kept his title as a “king of goals”.
“All my fans were calling me and checking up on me all this time. I got the most massive love I’ve ever got in my life. My phone was ringing off the hook for days. Messages were coming. It was crazy. I’ve never seen such a thing in my life, and if people here can have such love for each other, I don’t think we will have a problem in this life.”
Ogbonna remembers some rockets being fired at Israel when he lived in the country in the early 2000s, but nothing like what he experienced last month.
“The rockets kept coming, like 300, 500 at a time. Luckily we have the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] using the Iron Dome to protect citizens. I give them the credit. Imagine if all of those rockets hit Israel? Nobody would be here, it would be like a ghost land.”
As for Hamas and those who support its actions, he has some strong words.
“You come to me first, and I have to protect my family, my land, against you. And then you try to make it look like we’re the ones who have been humiliating you. I’ll do whatever it takes to take you out, and I give credit to Netanyahu who has been doing whatever it takes to protect his people, unlike my own president of Nigeria, who doesn’t even give a f*** about his own people. So whoever is talking s*** about Israel protecting her own people against the terrorists is just talking sh***.
“I hear people yippy-yapping, talking about the Palestinians. People don’t know what we go through here – we who are citizens here.”
Ogbonna is also angered by accusations that Israel is a racist, apartheid state.
“I’ve been traveling all my life. I’ve been to more than 35 different countries, and I think this is the only place where I found love. I’ve been to countries where a white boy just comes up to me to touch my skin, like maybe I’m dirty or something. And then there’re guys who talk shit because I’m black. But I’ve never, even when I was playing football, had such an experience here, like racism, or words from fans, because I’m black. And so I think that whatever they’re talking, it’s because they haven’t been here to see how people live in harmony. In love. As humans.”
