"It's not a war, it's not a battlefield: It's a massacre."
I’d forgotten about that until October 7th and the days that have unfolded since then, watching and listening to the reports of 260 of young people at a music festival in the desert being hunted down and slaughtered, raped, burned and taken hostage by the Hamas terrorists.
And more reports of entire families being hunted and tortured and slaughtered in their homes. Mothers, fathers, babies, grandparents. Many survivors have talked about the laughter of the killers throughout the massacre.
Shaylee Atary, the mother of a one-month-old baby, described being hunted by the Hamas terrorists on Kibbutz Kfar Aza in an interview with journalist Nick Schifrin of PBS.
She talks about having to escape from their home and hide herself and baby Shaya while her husband Yahar tried to fend off their attackers. She and Shaya hid in bushes, then under empty planters and bags of potting soil in a shed, and were finally seen and taken in by neighbors. For 27 hours baby Shaya had no access to formula and was so dehydrated she nearly died. Thankfully she was taken to the hospital in time to save her life.
In the interview Shaylee told Schifrin her husband Yahar’s body had not been found with the others that had been massacred on their kibbutz so she was holding onto the hope that he’d been taken hostage and was still alive.
“He has a tattoo of a feather – a colored one. I’m looking for him. We didn’t find his body. We had a lot of bodies in Kfar Aza. I don’t know… I hope he is kidnapped to Gaza… He is a good person… He’s a great filmmaker… We like the quiet… We have waited a long time for this baby… He’s my best friend.”
Two days later she found out he’d been murdered by the Hamas terrorists.
Shaylee, I think of you every day. My husband is my best friend too. I remember what it’s like to be a new mom and how much I needed him to be with me. I know you’re a strong Israeli woman and you will find a way to get through this and my heart is with you and your little one.
On Kibbutz Kfar Aza, the mom and dad of ten-month-old twin boys were massacred.
"You see the babies, the mothers, the fathers in their bedrooms and how the terrorists killed," Israeli Maj. Gen. Itai Veruv told journalists allowed inside the kibbutz. "It's not a war, it's not a battlefield: It's a massacre."
When I was 17, just out of high school, I spent 3 months working on a kibbutz in the north of Israel and a month traveling afterwards. I went with two school friends in a group from South Africa, where we joined other volunteers from all over the world. The first day on the kibbutz I went through a big box of old work clothes and picked out two soft used flannel shirts and two pairs of worn pants that I wore every day for work. We’d go out very early in the morning to pick oranges. I remember the smell of oranges mixed with cigarette smoke. I wore my scratches from the orange trees like badges of honor. I also worked in the warm, sweet smelling greenhouse pulling weeds, in the not so sweet smelling chicken house collecting eggs, and in the factory that made ammunition.
On the kibbutz the children had their own parents, but all the children were everyone's children.
I hadn’t realized before how ethnically diverse Jews are. So many Israelis are refugees from countries that persecuted them. I made friends from Yemen, Ethiopia, India. I would sometimes see men and women who had tattooed numbers from the concentration camps on the insides of their wrists.
I learned that Israelis will take any opportunity to dance. One day I went to an army base near the Lebanese border with a friend who was a former soldier and dance teacher. That night I saw the tough girl and guy soldiers in their uniforms become all grace and joy while the music played and they danced and danced and danced.
There was a bomb shelter on the kibbutz and we had regular drills, and sometimes it would be used as an informal club where people could party and dance. Israeli folk dancing is complicated and beautiful.
Israel is a tiny, ancient and fascinating country, and I got to see so much of it and fell in love with it all. The only thing that intimidated me were the Israeli women. They were very tough and beautiful.
After our morning’s work, the afternoons were ours to do what we wanted. Everything was more accessible then and I explored the towns and villages as much as I could. Jericho, Tiberias, Jerusalem, Safat. My friend and I made friends with two Palestinian boys who invited us to one of their homes for dinner. His mom knew we were Jewish and was nothing but kind and welcoming. I loved the sound of Arabic and learned how to count to ten.
The synagogue we went to when our children were younger was right next to a Muslim community center. Our rabbi took every opportunity to organize gatherings in the courtyard where the families of both communities could eat and mingle. It always felt good. I have Muslim friends, do not support Netanyahu’s divisive extremist policies and believe in the right for Israeli’s and Palestinians to co-exist in a two-state solution.
My heart breaks for the Palestinian children and families too. I do not believe for a moment that Hamas cares about them. They have a history of using them as human shields, which tragically continues today. The atrocities they've committed this past week shows any shred of humanity they may have ever had has been lost.
Each day I hear from friends and family who are waiting to hear the fate of missing friends and relatives in Israel or mourning those who have been murdered or injured.
Around 150 people were taken hostage by the Hamas terrorists, 19 of them children. When I think about the children I go right back to the wild panic of losing my child for a few minutes in a crowded mall. It is unbearable to imagine the level of pain and anguish these children’s parents are going through.
Like so many other people, I’ve been in a tremendous amount of pain this past week. I deeply appreciate the comfort and support of friends, especially my non-Jewish friends. And it is truly heart-warming to see the outpouring of support for Israel from individuals and nations across the world.
Perhaps Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel captures the need for a safe country for Jews best when he writes in his book The Holy Land, published in 1983. “We are tired of expulsions, of pogroms; we have had enough of extermination camps. We are tired of apologizing for our existence. If I should go to Poland or Germany, every stone, every tree would remind me of contempt, hatred, murder, of children killed, of mothers burned alive, of human beings asphyxiated.”
For all who understand that, thank you.
References:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israeli-soldiers-clear-bodies-kibbutz-hamas-attack-rcna119861
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67053011
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