Day Four. Heavy.

I’ve been here four days but it feels like four months. As my self guided speed visit progresses, it’s becoming more meaningful, personal and emotional. It’s also becoming more difficult to capture, especially after naively committing to LinkedIn (a business networking platform ??) as the place I’d share what I’m seeing and feeling.

Yesterday was a lot. I joined a group of around 40 people, mainly Americans, Canadians and Olim (internationals who have moved to Israel) to ‘bear witness’ in the south before putting on a BBQ for soldiers who have just come back from Gaza.?

We visited the car graveyard (a site that holds hundreds, maybe thousands of cars that, with their inhabitants, were shot up, blown up or set alight by Hamas terrorists on October 7), the site of the Nova music festival (where 364 people at a dance party were slaughtered by Hamas terrorists on October 7) and Kibbutz Kfar Aza (one of 22 Kibbutzim that was completely decimated by Hamas terrorists, also on October 7). I’ll share some details of what I saw and heard at each, but there are far better places to find detailed accounts of the horrors that transpired there than this post.

First though, I want to try and capture what I feel, which seems like an impossible task. Not because ‘there are no words’, but because the words have all been taken.?

“Ceasefire”

In response to calls for a ceasefire, people rightly point out that a ceasefire was already in place on October 6, before Hamas commenced their murdering, raping, pillaging and hostage taking. Factually, this is correct, but ‘ceasefire’ does not capture what I saw. The word is cold, terse, fragile. It conjures images of people who would rather be killing each other taking a momentary pause, before returning wholeheartedly to battle.?

What I saw at Nova and Kfar Aza were not signs of an October 6 ceasefire, but of an October 6 life. Full, rich, beautiful life. Not perfect by any stretch, but life. Playgrounds and community noticeboards and children’s drawings. Signs for an upcoming local election. Outdoor structures still standing from the festival of Sukkot. Sparsely furnished, love filled homes of newlyweds. I saw a life where Israelis and Palestinians worked side by side each day. A life where young Jews, Christians and Muslims danced in the same field to the same DJ as the sun rose above them all. A life, for thousands, that was warm and productive and joyful.

The Gazan border is not even 50 meters from Kfar Aza. You can walk across a four lane road and touch it if you want. People travelled back and forth across this border every single day. There was commerce, friendship, comradery. Residents of Kfar Aza chose to live this close to Gaza because they believed in peace. They worked for peace. They lived for peace. People on both sides of this border were committed to doing better together, if not for their own sake, then for the sake of their children.

This is the ‘ceasefire’ that Hamas breached and sought to permanently destroy on October 7.

“Terrorism”

There’s no doubt that what we saw was terrorism. Well planned, devestatingly executed terrorism. The thousands of Hamas operatives who stormed the border were well coordinated and even better prepared. They fired thousands of rockets over a 15 minute period before storming in by parachute, truck and motorbike. They brought knives, swords, machine guns, RPGs, bombs, gasoline, fire accelerants and plastic handcuffs. They brought Kibbutz maps and floor plans (many of which were prepared by the same Palestinains who had worked in these communities for years). They brought instructions and how-to guides for rape, murder and hostage taking.?

But all of this was ‘the first wave’. They came. They killed. They took hostages.

What I didn’t realise was that so much of the devastation caused to Kfar Aza and the other 21 kibbutzim just like it came in the second wave. Ordinary Gazan civilians, if we can call them that, rushing over the border to rape, pillage and destroy.?

They too came by truck but also by foot, tractor and even donkey. They stepped over corpses, blood still flowing, to steal everything from TVs to lingerie. They mutilated bodies. They beheaded those already deceased. They blew up buildings. There’s video footage and first person testimony of it all.

111 days later, the atmosphere still caries hints of a ferocity that I simply cannot fathom. When I visited Auschwitz, a place where one million Jews were systematically murdered between 1940 and 1945, I felt a perverse sense of clinical efficiency. What I saw yesterday, carried out by ‘regular civilians’, was something else entirely.

This was not all Gazans, of course. There are two million of them. But it was enough that it took the IDF almost three days to regain control of this one Kibbutz and more than two weeks to ensure that every home and building was cleared of dead bodies, body parts and booby traps.?

All of this is to say nothing of the thousands of Gazans who flocked to the streets to cheer on the Hamas attacks and celebrate the ‘victory’ on October 7. They spat at raped hostages being dragged through the streets in bloodied sweat pants. They punched and kicked grandmothers in the backs of pick up trucks.

These people were not members of, nor had any official affiliations with Hamas. Were they terrorists? Were they civilians? What do we call them? And if, somehow, Israel does manage to ‘destroy Hamas’ and end the war, how do the people of these Kibbutzim go back to living next door to them???

“Resilient”

In Australia, we use the word ‘resilient’ to describe someone who receives constructive criticism in a work performance review and doesn’t burst into tears.?

Yesterday I saw the meaning of resilience. Israelis of all ages, colours and persuasions pushing ahead with life. Thousands of citizens stepping in where the flat footed government has been caught short. Free food trucks for soldiers. Donations for the displaced. Fund raising for families. Volunteer drivers, medics, massage therapists and dog sitters.?

All of this, while the war against Hamas, a war that Israel neither started nor wants, rages on. While over 100 hostages, including the Bibas brothers aged four and one, sit in underground tunnels waiting to be saved. While antisemites, morally bankrupt governments and corrupted organisations the world over scream ‘ceasefire!’ and ‘genocide!’. While thousands of citizens in civilised Western countries use their democratic freedoms to cheer on an extremist Islamic death cult.?

The Israeli people, including seven million Jews, two million Arabs as well as Bedouins, Druze, Maronites, Copts, Arameans and Assyrians will never be broken. Before October 7, Israelis and Jews at large were not at our best. We saw greater divisions within the population than at any time in recent history. Thousands were taking to the streets each week to protest.

Yesterday, I saw no such thing. Just a group of people pulling together to ensure that this country not only survives this atrocity, but thrives because of it. I have no doubt that in time, the horrors of October 7 will be overcome by the heroism and resilience of the Israeli people. It’s already well underway.

“Hope”

Somehow, through it all, there remains hope. A fuzzy hope with far more questions than answers. A hope that, in my experience, is largely consistent throughout the population. The Israeli people, more than anything else in this world, hope to llve in peace. The exact same peace most of us in the western world take for granted every single day.

Israelis want peace, not just for themselves, but for their Palestinian neighbours. Even if you remove any sense of altruism, they’re pragmatic enough to understand that a happy, thriving next door neighbour, who’s job prospects are good and who’s children are doing well at school, is far less likely to jump a fence with a machine gun in hand and murder on their mind.

The way that this hope for peace will be achieved is completely unclear. Yes, Hamas, a terrorist organisation committed to the elimination of Israel and the Jewish people, with tentacles in everything from the UN to South African banks and the Gazan education system must go. But then what? How do you undo decades, even centuries of institutionalised hatred? How do you forgive the misgivings and carnage on both sides? How do you build a bridge when so many innocent lives across the entire region have been lost?

You start with hope. Hatikva.?

Logistics

I started the day with a train trip from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to meet the group at one of the many Chabad Houses scattered across the city. My Tel Avivian friend Pam and I quickly realised we’d joined a slightly more ‘religiously inclined’ group than we’d anticipated, which was confirmed when the tour group made brief stops for both afternoon and evening prayers ??.?

After a quick briefing, we made the two hour trip down south, initially stopping at a site now referred to as the Car Graveyard. Behind a wire fence and police tape are the burnt out shells of hundreds, maybe thousands of cars recovered from the massacres of October 7. You can see the charred auto skeletons of every make and model imaginable, including an upturned ambulance that had been blown up, with it’s inhabitants, by a rocket propelled grenade.

When Hamas operatives stormed the Nova dance festival, many attendees fled to their cars to try to escape. In the chaos, and due to terrorists controlling a number of key intersections, a gigantic traffic jam ensued. From here, terrorists simply walked along the gridlocked traffic, putting the guns, knives, explosives and rocket launches they’d brought with them to devastating use. Many of the 1,200 people murdered on October 7 died in this exact traffic jam.

Driving along this stretch of road more than three months later, you can still see patches of road that are burnt, pockmarked by bullets or damaged by the Israeli tanks that eventually made it to the scene.

The cars sit here, piled up, because the Israeli government doesn’t know quite what to do with them. Jewish law is very strict when it comes to rituals around death and burial. It’s imperative that all parts of the person are returned to the ground together. But what do you do when there are parts of people embedded in car upholstery or incinerated to ashes?

In all likelihood, all of these cars will be buried.

From here, we visited the site of the Nova dance festival, where 364 partygoers were brutally murdered. Nova had been set up as a dance festival committed to pure happiness. Good vibes only. The movement had grown steadily in popularity over the years and this event was its biggest by far. It featured interntional DJs and an idyllic setting where revellers were surrounded by nature.

Rocketfire is not entirely unusual in this area, so when the sirens started, most people weren’t too worried. A lucky few decided to head straight to their cars and leave, but most elected to stay. Within minutes, Hamas terrorists approached from all sides, as well as from above with parachutes. People ran to the forest and hid anywhere they could but for many, it was only a matter of time.

We heard stories of a few local heroes who drove their civilian cars in and out of the festival site trying to rescue as many people as they could. Some saved a few. Some saved dozens. Some survived. Many did not.?

There is now an exhibition set up with photos of every slain attendee. It’s completely harrowing. The faces are so young. There is also a new garden that was only planted this week with a tree dedicated to each. The scale of what I saw and the sadness I felt are indescribable.?

From Nova, we made a brief stop at a roadside bomb shelter (decades of incessant rocket fire means there are many of these all over Israel). When the rockets started at 6:29am on October 7, many people fled to the bomb shelters to seek refuge (as they’re instructed to do).?

Hamas terrorists knew this would happen and were ready to throw grenades inside them. At the particular shelter we stopped at, a 22 year old, unarmed, off-duty Israeli soldier named Aner Shapiro caught and threw back seven grenades before the eighth one exploded, killing 12 of the 20 people inside (if you’re wondering, you have 4-5 seconds before a grenade explodes).

Our next stop was to Kfar Aza, one of 22 communities that were attacked on October 7. Less than 30 minutes after first alarms sounded on that fateful morning, 300 terrorists arrived with knives, machine guns and RPGs. They rampaged door to door, killing anything that moved, screaming in Arabic as they went.

Many people fled to their ‘safe rooms’. These small areas are meant to be the most secure part of any home or building. Unfortunately, they’re designed to keep people safe from rockets, not from murderous predators with guns. The doors are not bulletproof and most don’t even lock.?

Of the 750 people who lived there, 63 were murdered, 18 were kidnapped to Gaza and five are still held hostage. That’s ten percent of the entire population murdered or kidnapped in a single attack. Victims include the young and old, newlyweds and parents of 10 month old twins. 250 terrorists were also killed here in a battle that raged for almost three days.?

After the terrorists had left or been eliminated, a procession of military, medical, coronary and government services passed through the kibbutz. The different graffiti on the walls is from the different groups confirming the buildings were clear. Booby traps had been left everywhere including bombs on the door handles of the safe rooms, poised to explode when the inhabitants emerged.

As described earlier, much of the devastation and destruction was not caused by the initial wave of Hamas terrorists, but by ‘ordinary civilians’ who crossed the border to ‘help’.

111 days later, everything remains largely untouched. The devastation is raw and real. A young female soldier stationed at the kibbutz has the job of telling the story of what happened to groups like ours over and over again each day. “We retell these stories not to relive the trauma but because the world needs to know” she said. “What happened here should concern humanity”.?

From here, we helped cook a barbeque for soldiers who had just returned from Gaza. These called up reservists were doing everything they could to ensure that Kfar Aza’s hostages are returned and that one day soon, it’s safe for residents to return to their homes.

Next stop is spending Shabbat with my family in Shadmot Devorah. Then on Sunday, I will visit Margalit Moses, my great aunt who was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7 and held hostage by Hamas for over 50 days.

Am Yisrael Chai ????