We look two lane Highway 232 to Kibbutz Ber-eri. It is so close to the border of Gaza it remains restricted and one needs military clearance to enter the area. We heard artillery fire. It sounded somewhat distant but actually quite close. We were reassured it was kilometers away and part of ongoing operations. We felt the ground quake with each explosion. I involuntarily jumped with each time.  Seeing a dozen Americans jump with each sound may have brought some comic relief to our Israeli hosts. This was my first time to be in a war zone. It felt bizarrely tranquil, almost surreal to see lush green fields of jojoba and winter wheat,  hear explosions and know that massacres had occurred HERE.

People were massacred right here

I walked through the destroyed, bombed out neighborhoods of Kibbutz Be’eri. Called Olive and Vineyard, they were filled with spacious single family homes, landscaped mature garden and lots of olive trees and grape vines

 

 

 

Lotan described their life through October 6th as idyllic. “99% living in a Garden of Eden.” He and friends would joke that the other 1% of the time was the opposite,  dangerous rocket/missile attacks from just over the fence that thankfully were thwarted by Iron Dome interceptions made it possible for them to raise their families safely and without fear.

 

 

 

Kibbutz Be’eri is well known to be a successful kibbutz, politically liberal and known to be respectful of their Palestinian day workers. On Oct 6th they had celebrated the anniversary of the 1946 founding of their kibbutz. Guided by a history of inter-generational idealism they provided assistance to transport Palestinians who needed to receive advanced medical care in major Israeli hospitals. Their Palestinian workers were appreciated and much paid higher wages than the standard in Gaza. The Be’eri community had believed these respectful acts contributed to relative peaceful co-existence. Apparently Hamas had a different agenda. 

 

 

 

Lotan and many others have given interviews that  allow you to piece together some of the events of Oct 7th. You can read an excellent account by The New York Times or others in Times of Israel or The Jerusalem Post. I will focus on my observations because I want to share what I experienced as a witness.

 

Massacre at the Garden of Eden

 

The day I visited I had so many questions. How does Lotan have the courage and strength to revisit these horrors with groups like our own? How can he stand in front of his former home or in the  garden where his family gathered and the children played? How can Lotan look down the street to the site of a mass execution where his wife’s parents were found. We all cried while he talked. Most of the time Lotan wore sunglasses and occasionally wiped his eyes. Many times he sounded almost numb.

 

We walked around the destroyed neighborhoods, the playgrounds, the clinics, the dining hall. I saw the unimaginable remains of what had been a regular prosperous life, children’s toys, fruit trees, basketball hoops, kid’s bikes, washing machines. I saw but still cannot comprehend the rubble, the buildings with gaping holes, the contents of home after home strewn like total garbage. It looked like the aftermath of a tornado or hurricane. How could humans have been monstrously destructive? It was a nightmare even without the corpses, without the smoke, without the smell of burning flesh. 

Homes with toys and bikes were targeted by the terrorists

 

Be’eri is cleaned up to allow visitors. Booby traps, live grenades that had been left  behind during the hours the Hamas terrorists occupied Be’eri had to be found and neutalized.  BTW IMAGINE THIS UGLY TRUTH, the terrorists had time to eat meals in the kitchens of families that they went on to murder. Some even took naps ( after all the terrorists had to wake up early to start an invasion). 

 

 

 

Lotan described how it felt impossible to comprehend or grasp the scope of the attack. Initially he thought they’d have to stay in their safe room for just a couple of hours, until the WhatsApp messages coming in from all over the kibbutz and other neighboring communities. The messages became dire then silence. At any moment they expected the army or police to come to the rescue. The hours passed, the explosions continued and continued, smoke filled the air, children needed to stay silent, their dog needed to stay silent, knowing people they loved dearly had been murdered, they had to remain silent. Lotan remembers at one point needing to promise his son that they would not die that day, only to wonder the very same thing when there was direct fire. After 17 or 18 hours in their safe room IDF soldiers led them to escape via a waiting vehicle. First they had to run through a field that still was an active battle zone. Lotan was instructed by one sensitive IDF soldier to cover their children’s eyes as they ran past corpses. 

 

 

 

Now Lotan can point out to visitors the neighborhoods that were attacked and the chronology of events. With this hindsight the attack seemed so purposeful. The terrorists sought out the neighborhoods with children, with families. They “knew the neighborhoods.”

 

People who escaped left everything behind

Lotan gave us his first person account of  the Oct 7th massacre. He shared his personal grueling account of that morning and not being able to help others and doing everything possible to keep his family alive.

 

 

 

We stood in the wreckage of Amir and Mati Weiss’s (Logan’s in-laws, who were slain) front yard listening to the moment by moment details. Standing in the yard perhaps I saw the exact evidence the terrorists were looking for. They sought out homes where there were children. They saw toys and entered the home of the Weiss family. The terrorists shot at the Weiss safe room and at some point both Mati and Amir Weiss were wounded.  Lotan played for us a recording of their family WhatsApp  conversation during the last moments they had contact with his in-laws. We heard the moments when Lotan and Michel heard her parents’ increasing desperation as the terrorists threatened to enter their safe room. 

 

 

 

Soon all the damaged buildings and once vibrant neighborhoods will be razed. A new Kibbutz Be-eri will be built. We don’t know how many people will be able to return. I have witnessed a ghost of what had been. Soon it will be physically erased. I now comprehend things totally differently than I had by reading the news. This is why being a witness is so important. This is why I must share this knowledge. This is an experience like none other I have ever known. 

 

 

 

When Sam and I visited Israel last year we realized that living in Israel requires idealism and hope. The people of Be’eri embodied exactly that. 

 

 

 

Standing with Lotan suddenly the magnitude of the atrocity committed by Hamas came into relief for me. The Hamas terrorists selected to attack the very people who aimed to achieve peaceful co-existence with their Palestinian neighbors. Hamas targeted them with obscenely barbaric attacks. It is unlikely that Vivian Silver, the peace activist who was in her 70s was just a random one of the nearly 100 victims of the Hamas rampage.  90% of the elderly kibbutz members survived. Children and families were the the targets. 

 

 

 

Hamas and their sympathizers have a strategy, to scare us into silence. The antisemitism we are seeing worldwide is meant to silence us. Hamas and Islamic extremists have made their intentions perfectly clear. Israel and American Jews cannot be silent. We must all bear witness and speak up.