Ma Hadash Blog from CSH

Yesterday we heard aspects of hope. Today was more difficult. We headed south from Tel Aviv to the Gaza envelope. Here we met people who were grieving. At the same time, we saw acts of heroism.

Since this will be a long post, I want to start by describing the emotional conditions. In many ways, no matter where you are, you see a country suffering from PTSD. They say that every person knows someone who was killed or taken hostage. And yet, in most places, they have already begun healing and repairing. Think back to September 11, 2001. We had our own case of PTSD after the first real attack on US soil.

We started at Yad Mordechai kibbutz. The kibbutz was founded in 1943, purchased legally from Arab owners. Members are farmers, raise livestock, and are beekeepers. We heard from Noam, a young lady of 20, who is a medical trainer in the army. She is a third generation member, and grew up in the kibbutz. On the morning of October 7th, she and her brothers and sisters (ages 14, 16, and 22) awoke to sirens, and following the normal protocol, moved into the shelter. Their parents were away in Tel Aviv for the weekend.

Think about that. Kibbutz Yad Mordechai is within eye and earshot of Gaza. Rockets are fired from Gaza into the envelope often enough that moving to a bomb shelter has become normalized. The school where the kids learn is itself a bomb shelter. The Iron Dome (literally Iron Kippah) stops 90-95% of the rockets. Next to bus stops there are concrete shelters in case of rocket attacks. This time, there were over 3,000 rockets in salvos of 100+, attempting to overwhelm the Iron Dome.

This morning, things felt different. From the bomb shelter, they could hear fighting. They were able to communicate until the power went out. A few soldiers who were at a base on the kibbutz, as well as kibbutz members assigned to protect the kibbutz engaged with the Hamas terrorists. Yad Mordechai sustained relatively little damage, and Noam and her siblings were picked up by their father. The majority of the kibbutz was evacuated. Children are now going to school at a kibbutz farther north. They expect everyone to return by July.

That weekend, only 200 soldiers were assigned to patrol and protect the entire boarder with Gaza. It was felt that the huge fence constructed, dug 20 meters deep with sensors to detect tunnels, was sufficient. However, Hamas didn’t dig under, they blew up sections and came over the top.

We next went to Kfar Aza kibbutz. Kfar Aza is only a mile from the border. Their farm land reaches the border. At 6:30 in the morning, when the sirens sounded, when the civil guard went to the armory, they found Hamas already there. Those seven people were killed immediately. The 15 people who had guns tried to hold off about 200 terrorists. That day, 79 members were killed and 18 were kidnapped. We walked the grounds where houses were burned and/or hit by grenades.

Our guide, Alon Keslev was in the north, but his daughter and grandchild had managed to get to the safe room. The army didn’t come for 2 1/2 hours. Alon’s family spent 20 hours in the safe room until the army was able to secure the area. Because the kibbutz is so close to the border, it was easy for Hamas to take the 18 kidnap victims back across the border. Alon drove south like crazy and was able to pick up his family during the night. Alon himself is a tank commander in the reserves, and was immediately activated. He commands a battalion of 40 tanks and 1,000 soldiers.

We next went to Sderot a small city near the north east corner of Gaza. Here Hamas attacked the police station. We watched security camera footage as one of the policemen, Shai, described what we were seeing. 10 police were killed as they responded to sirens telling them to return to the station. We also saw an innocent family of 4 drive into the area. Both parents were killed. Police rescued a 7 year old girl protecting her 3 year old sister.

The IDF destroyed the police station, killing the 25 terrorists who had barricaded themselves inside. We saw the memorial on the space where the station had been.

We then went to the site of the Nova Festival, a nice park with a eucalyptus forest. There were 3,000 attendees who had partied late and slept on the grounds. Hamas murdered 350 people. 350 trees have been planted in their memory (bamboo stakes in the above photo). We saw many civilians and people in army uniforms coming to pay their respects. Here we chose to say prayers for all of the individuals we had learned about. May their memory be for a blessing.

It has been a gut-wrenching day. We spoke with two more people before heading back to the hotel. One of them leads a Jewish/Bedouin service group that has worked to maintain civil dialog between the Bedouin and Jewish citizens in the area. The other was a rabbi in Ofakim who told the story of the death of some of his students. You will enjoy this story of an unlikely heroine.

There is still fighting going on in Gaza. In both kibbutzim and at the site of the Nova Festival we heard gun and mortar fire. This made things all too real.

We had the impression yesterday that everyone we spoke with was “left” leaning. That wasn’t the case today. As might be expected, people much closer to the events were not so hopeful. However, they all spoke to their values, and did not descend into politics.

Tomorrow we head up to Jerusalem.