The Southwestern Israeli villages of Kfar Aza, Nahal Oz, and Kissufim are as close as Israeli civilians and visitors can get to the border of Gaza. Today, these once-vibrant villages are mostly empty and silent: Orange, lemon, and pomegranate tree branches bend under the weight of unharvested fruit; stray cats stalk rodents in the tall, brown grass; birds sing. The air is redolent with the scent of flowers, rosemary, citrus, and death.
Death came to Kfar Aza with the dawn of October 7th. It came to Nahal Oz, Nir Oz, Re’im, Be’eri, Erez, Yad Mordechai, Karmiya, Zikim, and Sderot. It reaped a horrible harvest at the Nova music festival. In total, at least 1,500 Hamas militants killed 1,139 people: 695 Israeli civilians (including 38 children), 71 foreign nationals (including 36 American citizens) , and 373 members of the security forces (Israel Police and IDF). It was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
At the Nova music festival site, Hamas deathmongers killed 364 civilians and wounded many others; trained teams abducted more than 240 hostages—including Hersh Goldberg-Polin, one of the most internationally recognized hostages taken by Hamas that day. To many people in American and Israel, Hersh had become a symbol of hope. Alas, hope is neither a strategy nor does it reflect the reality of the physical, psychological, and paramilitary terror Hamas has inflicted on Israel.
In late August, I visited several towns overrun by Hamas. Escorted by a senior Israeli law enforcement officer, I accessed areas that are closed to most visitors—Israelis and foreigners—and met with leaders of the respective Security Councils. The memories of October 7th remain fresh in the minds of many of the people I met. They tell their tragic stories slowly, lurchingly, angrily, with resolve.
On the morning of October 7th, Hamas terrorists launched the biggest rocket barrage ever on Israel. The wave of missiles from Gaza forced residents into their secure shelters–a common, almost daily, occurrence, I’m told. Squads of heavily armed Hamas militants followed the missiles, swarming villages from the West, South, and North. The well-trained terrorists infiltrated from the air and on the ground, by paraglider, truck, motorcycle, bicycle, and foot.
In the months since the Simchat Torah massacre, more than 120,000 residents have been evacuated from a 10KM archipelago of kibbutzim, moshavim, kfarim, and cities that stretches from the Mediterranean Sea in the West to Kerem Shalom in the South to Ofakim in the East. Although the refugee situation in Gaza garners media attention, reporting about Israel’s hundreds of thousands of internally displaced citizens—the largest displacement of Israeli citizens in the sovereign state’s history–remains minimal.
While most accounts of October 7 are incomplete and missing crucial details about the sequence of events, one fact is abundantly clear to all Israelis: The country’s intelligence and operational systems collapsed. Another fact has also become increasingly evident as the war drags on beyond a year: The economic fallout is negatively affecting Israel’s construction, agriculture, tourism, hospitality, and entertainment sectors.
For example, Kfar Aza—a major producer of corn, citrus, and dairy—was once home to 500 residents; its population is now less than 50. Down the road in Nir Oz, Hamas militants machine-gunned Thai workers alongside the cows whom they helped the villages’ 438 residents care for. About 38 Nir Oz residents were killed by Hamas and another 75 seized as hostages. Will the residents return? No one seems to know.
In Kfar Aza, the one-sided battle lasted a few murderous minutes: The attackers launched RPGs at shelter windows—the most vulnerable point. Once breached, the attackers threw in fragmentation grenades and sprayed shelter interiors with exploding bullets that shredded everything inside. Structures meant to protect became mausoleums; houses attached to shelters were burned, looted, and desecrated in unspeakable ways.
The attackers marauded through Kfar Aza, murdering, burning, raping, beheading, and kidnapping defenseless residents. Their rampage remains visible in the charred remains of the modest houses which, now cleared of human remains, are mute witnesses to another murder of our innocents. Asking about the holes scattered randomly throughout the detritus-strewn combat zone, we’re told they represent the Sisyphean efforts of a father who searches for his son’s head; trying to bury it in a grave dug months ago.
Courageous members of Kfar Aza’s security council tried to reach the armory but entered a cunning ambush set up by the well-informed attackers. Triangulating fire from nearby rooftops, the terrorists cut down five members of Kfar Aza’s QRF (Quick Reaction Force). As he died, a mortally wounded resident warned others not to approach. A memorial decorated with faded flowers and photos marks where he perished.
I saw similar memorials at nearby Nahal Oz, an Army base where 66 soldiers (including 15 females) were slaughtered, in the city of Sderot, where eight policemen were killed in their station, and along two-lane roads throughout the zone in which Hamas terrorists penetrated. When I visited Sderot, workers were building a memorial where the former police station stood.
Crouched on a berm looking across the border at the destroyed village of Jabaliya, I hear the whine of drones and the distant boom of artillery. As a U.S. Army veteran, I know these sounds well. As a Jew, I appreciate these sounds.
Indeed, I welcome these sounds, because they communicate that the IDF—which includes two of my nephews—is fighting back. And tomorrow Israel will fight back. And the next day, and the next month, the next year, the next generation.
These sounds tell me that the phrase “never again” isn’t merely said to console thousands of years of heartbreak. Today, “never again means now” reflects the service of my nieces and nephews. The strength of the Jewish homeland.
To those who protest Israel’s actions—the actions of a sovereign state—I say: Come to Kfar Aza. Come to Yad Mordechai. Come to the Nova Festival site. Come to Erez, Be’eri, Nir Oz, Netiv Haasara, Alumim. Come. See the carnage and devastation wrought by so-called “Freedom Fighters”. Perhaps then you will reconsider those for whom you protest and why.
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