We Visit the Gaza Envelope

 Thursday, February 22, 2024

First, we are fine.  There was a terrorist attack this morning with the murder of one and the wounding of eight just outside of Jerusalem at a check point on a road to the occupied territories.  We were not impacted.

Each morning at breakfast, there is a table with sandwich makings where parents of school-aged children living in the hotel can make their lunches.  The selection of sandwich contents seemed quite limited:

We had a highly emotional day today with a visit to the Gaza envelope.  But before that visit, for our volunteer activity, we traveled into the agricultural heartland of Israel.  Spring is in full bloom, but substantial numbers of agricultural work isn’t being done, as there are no Palestinian workers.  They used to cross from Gaza into Israel and did the bulk of the work on the farms.  No longer.  We traveled south, past vast chickpea fields just planted:

Our destination was Moshav Kfar Warburg, where there are groves of lemons and pomegranates (which are not in bloom yet):

We arrived at a vast nectarine orchard.  We learned that there is a two-week window to thin the blossoms so that there will be fewer but larger fruits.  The farmer was so grateful to have laborers to accomplish this task.  We saw the problem:

And we were instructed on how to thin the blossoms, how many to leave on each branch, and how to choose the ones to remove and which to leave:

The weather was beautiful for working outdoors, and we spent about 90 minutes thinning the blossoms on the trees.  The farmer came with food and drink and was effusive in his thanks for our being there.  We stopped for lunch and then proceeded further southwest until we arrived at the site of the music festival where 4400 young people were at a concert when the Hamas attack occurred on October 7.

364 people were murdered on the site of the festival, including 17 police officers who were there for security.  44 hostages were taken.  At the concert site, poles have been set up with photos on top, and visitors wander, shocked, among the photos memorializing the victims:

At one site, a soldier sat on the ground, his weapon in front of him, strumming his guitar and singing a mournful tune:

We heard occasional Israeli artillery firing.  Rocket attacks from Gaza into this area have diminished to only one or two a week, and there are shelters to protect against the shrapnel.  They would not protect against a direct hit:

Across an adjacent road is a beautiful field of poppies in which a tree has been planted for each of the victims:

We spent some time at the site, and before leaving, stood in a circle to recite kaddish:

We stopped at the place where all of the destroyed cars from the concert site have been gathered:

We then traveled to Kfar Aza, a beautiful agricultural kibbutz less than a mile from the Gaza border.  This is the gate which the Hamas terrorists breached on October 7; the buildings in the background are in Gaza:

We met a woman named Chen (pronounced with a guttural back of the throat ch, not as in an Asian name).  She began her narrative of the events of October 7 on the porch of her home:

Chen has lived her whole life on the kibbutz, and spoke of her upbringing, her family, and the very close relationships of all the people on the kibbutz.  The population on October 6 was 955, of which 250 were children.  After a mortar attack in 2008, the kibbutz developed secure rooms in each of the homes which saved many lives when they were invaded. 

We moved outdoors as she continued the narrative:

Hamas invaded the kibbutz both on land and with paragliders, one of which landed just outside of her bedroom.  There were between 70 and 100 Hamas fighters, some of whom wore Israeli army uniforms, adding to the chaos.  We walked as she talked, and gave us a terrifying account of the next days.  There were five days of battles on the kibbutz, with the ultimate murder of 63 people.  On the kibbutz, when children reach the age of 18, they move from their parents’ homes to a tiny village of very small houses of their own, built very close to the gate which was breached.  Thus, these young adults were the first victims of the attack.  Two were killed and 18 were taken hostage.

As we walked, we were able to see that many homes had been destroyed—40% are unlivable.  The houses had markings on them from when the army and the subsequent crews arrived.  A circle with a dot in it meant a dead body was in this house:

We walked with Chen about an hour.  At the end of our visit, she implored us to keep the hostages in our minds and to not let the need for their return fall in importance.  We took a group photo with her and promised to work for the hostages’ return. 

We returned to Jerusalem, completely drained by our visit.  Hearing and seeing firsthand the evidence of the astonishingly brutal attack, the murder of more than 1200 people, and the hostage taking of ordinary Israeli citizens simply living their everyday lives was unfathomable.  And yet, it happened.  If anyone would like more detailed information on the attack, a good place to begin might be this web site where each site which was attacked is described:  https://oct7map.com/