A Passage to Israel - Part 1: The Remnant of Evil

I just returned from Israel after five days on the ground.

This is part 1 of what I saw and heard.

Our visit to Kfar Aza, a kibbutz on the border with Gaza that saw scores of their members slaughtered or abducted on Oct 7th, began with a rocket attack alert.

The Israeli Iron Dome detected a launch from across the border. We had 15 seconds to get to shelter.

We ran.

It was a false alarm.

After we emerged from the thick concrete bus stop that doubled as a safe room, our hostess Hen, a slight woman who lived in Kfar Aza for many decades, gave us a walking tour of her community. We went house by house, neighborhood by neighborhood. The woman, filled with grief and determination, told us of the horror and bravery her friends and family experienced on the first Shabbat of last October.

Her narration was punctuated from time to time by the sound of IDF artillery fired from nearby and the staccato of machine gun fire a few miles away on the front to the southwest of us. Columns of dark smoke rose in the distance.

Every time an artillery boom was heard, Hen casually paused her description to say in a clipped-Israeli accent, “Don’t worry – that’s one of Ours.”

Hen told us she woke up at 6:30am on the morning of Oct 7thto the rocket alert system telling her to get into her safe room. She complied – and after 15 minutes was shocked to hear the barrage of rocket fire continue.

The WhatsApp groups she was a part of began a constant ping of activity. Friends and family confused by what was happening. Reports of gunfire and ambushes. Houses set ablaze.

We started near her house and the armory – where the 7-person rapid response force within the kibbutz was supposed to muster in an emergency. The Hamas terrorists – numbering around 300 - who invaded the kibbutz knew the layout well.

The first wave came in via paraglider and across the border wall. The $1B, anti-tunneling wall was breached with a simple, heavy, farm tractor, allowing floods of terrorists to stream through unabated. The complex system of cameras and vibration detection technology failed to provide any warning.

Some Hamas positioned themselves outside the armory. They cut down the few Israeli men running from their homes to attempt a first line of defense while waiting for Israeli support forces. Some of the attackers were dressed in Israeli uniforms, some in the black of Hamas’ special forces.

Hen told us about a neighbor – a young couple with twin 10-month olds. The mother tried to emerge from the safe room to warm some milk for the babies. A Hamas attacker cut her down in her kitchen. Her husband was killed soon after when he came out to see what happened. For the next 8 hours, the attackers set up an ambush in the house, using the crying babies as bait to draw in other kibbutz members who couldn’t help but want to respond to the cry of children. Eventually, the babies were rescued.

As we walked, we saw every home’s door had one of two spraypainted symbols. A circle with a triangle or a circle with a dot. A dot meant someone was killed in that house.

She pointed to spots on the ground, saying by name individuals and where they fell. The seeming randomness was jarring – why was one home spared, but another not?

Some were burnt out husks. Elderly community members were burned alive. Some homes had collapsed roofs from direct rocket impacts.

Approaching the fence line that bordered Gaza, the dots increased in frequency. This culminated with the young persons neighborhood, which bore the brunt of the massacre.

This was a quasi-dorm room environment with one-bedroom condos laid out alongside small greenways. It was described, pre-Oct 7th, as the most joyful part of the kibbutz – a place where hundreds of young people lived, staying up late, building friendships, discovering themselves.

Seeing the destruction firsthand was horrifying. F

Front walls torn down, collapsing roofs, burned out kitchens, rubble in living areas. Nearly every living space had a large sign in front of it with a picture and a name.

Killed.

Killed.

28-year old woman kidnapped. Bring Her Back!

Killed.

30-year old woman kidnapped. Bring Her Back!

Killed.

Living space after living space.

After a few minutes of stunned wandering, Hen reconvened us and pulled out a binder. She read us parts of the young people’s WhatsApp text chain from that day.

Tens of pages filled with a real-time chronology of the attack.

“I’m in my safe room but can’t lock the door – what can I do? I can hear them outside. Please send help!”

“I’m holding the door handle, and I feel fire burning around me. What should I do??”

“They are banging on the door. Where are our soldiers? I’m scared.”

“I don’t want to die! Please God, save us!”

“Can someone check on my brother? I haven’t heard from him in 30 minutes – I’m trapped in my safe room.”

As the day went on, more and more once-active phone numbers stopped sending messages. Around 22 young people of the kibbutz were murdered in their rooms on Oct 7th, with another 8 grabbed and abducted into the tunnels of Gaza. Near the end of the visit, Hen told us about her sister.

On Friday Oct 6th, her sister hosted a large shabbat dinner and 12 kids stayed the night. On the morning of Oct 7th, the sister locked her home down and turned out the lights. They endured most of the day in hushed, darkened silence, with little food or water and limited electricity.

She tracked what was happening by text. She saw and heard where the terrorists were progressing and by afternoon prepared for the worst. It was apparent Israelis were being kidnapped. Hen’s sister made plans to prevent that outcome by planning to kill her children and herself rather than being taken alive. Long experience with past hostage situations in Israel drove her resolve.

A daring raid by self-organized volunteers who arrived from the Israeli north prevented this outcome – but just barely.

Throughout the slaughter, the Israeli military slowly trickled in. Kibbutz members were shuttled back to the gas station at the far end of the gated community as they were saved.

The fighting continued for days, with the Israeli military rooting out hidden terrorists, house by house. Four days after the attacks, a hidden terrorist emerged from a “cleared” home with his weapon firing.

Members of the kibbutz have moved en masse to a large housing complex while the war rages. Families with kids live in one-bedroom hotel rooms.

As we left the kibbutz that day, Hen wanted us to know two things:

She insisted that she didn’t want to be viewed as a Victim.

And that at some point in the future, some (many?) would return and rebuild – just as her ancestors have for thousands of years in the wake of catastrophe.

On Saturday October 7th, 1200 Israelis were killed. 240 were taken as hostages. Over 100 remain in captivity.

UP NEXT - Part 2: A Day of Heroes and Grief

A note on the trip: The experience was organized by the Christian non-profit Passages which brings college students to the Holy Land so they can better understand their faith. The trip agenda included meeting with Members of the Knesset, Israeli Defense Force members, families of hostages / others who were present during the attacks of Oct 7th, West Bank residents, and site visits to attacked kibbutz’s and the Nova festival site.