The rubble of Kibbutz Be’eri after the attack – Ansa
From the ocher earth, as thin as dust, a forest of iron stakes arises. One for each of the 364 victims of the Nova electronic music concert. Their young or very young faces blossom on the tops of the rods. At the base, a flowerbed of white pebbles and red poppies. The ceramic copy of the flowers that appear everywhere in the South. “Kalanit”, they call them in Israel and are considered a symbol of new life. Especially in the Negev which, in this season, becomes a scarlet expanse of poppies. The dozens and dozens of people who wander through the Be’eri forest are not, however, here for the traditional “Darom Adon” Spring Festival. The enormous esplanade adjacent to Kibbutz Reim is the open-air memorial of October 7th. At dawn six months ago, a few hundred Hamas militiamen broke into the event to massacre, rape and kidnap the thousands of young people present. A carnage, one of many perpetrated by terrorists within 24 hours in the southern communities of the Jewish State, for a total of 1,200 victims and 257 women, men and children taken hostage. The attack on Nova – aimed at partying twenty-year-olds – is the synthesis and emblem of that day of horror. This is why it is the highlight of the “tour of pain”. Since December, when road 232 was reopened to traffic after more than two months of blockade, between 500 and a thousand people have arrived there daily. Alone or in organized groups, from the country or abroad, they walk slowly, observing the portraits of the dead and the kidnapped. In the background, the sinister thud of bombs falling on Gaza, just 18 kilometers away, resounds.
At the moment, there are around ten buses in the car park plus numerous taxis and private cars. Stephen came from Florida with a group of twenty compatriots. «We are all Jews. And as such we have a duty to see what happened. I want to be a witness – she says, while his voice breaks with emotion –. Even if it is very painful. I feel the same thing as when I was in Auschwitz.”
Neira and Yoknam, very young soldiers in uniformsay they have “goosebumps”: there are many soldiers on leave visiting, the army – they explain – encourages them to go to understand the threat they have to fight against.
Nathalie, from Kfar Saba, came six times since the pilgrimages began. Spontaneously at first. Family members and survivors, accompanied by solidarity groups born in the aftermath of the major national catastrophe, have begun to travel to Reim to remember the fallen with a sign. Then it grew. Now the Jewish Agency for Israel, the historic organization of the Zionist galaxy, is responsible for the management, in an unofficial way, while awaiting the construction of a real memorial park.
«I had to be there that night too – says Yael, 24 years old –. But I couldn’t. I can’t think about it.” Ilai, 23 years old, however, was there. He escaped the militiamen by hiding among the avocado trees. «This is why I am alive, unlike nine other friends who were murdered. I was in the bush for over 9 hours. I heard the shots, the shouts, the crying”, he tells about forty English people in front of a sign that reconstructs the stages of the assault. Once a week he acts as a guide to visitors, narrating the massacre down to the smallest detail. “I owe it to those who are no longer here,” he adds. With him there is Rami Davidian, a farmer from the community of Patish, who saved 750 boys: a friend had called him from Nova asking for help. Rami had rushed to help him, at the risk of being hit himself. Then he returned, by truck, over and over again, to take away as many people as possible.
“Hearing the stories of witnesses is not like reading the news,” he underlines Linda, from London, who had already been to Reim in January.
«I returned with my husband. I wanted him to have the experience. It is our tribute to the victims”. Not everyone thinks this way. Indeed, in the country there is a strong debate on the so-called “October 7th tourism”. Critics speak of “propaganda” and “transformation of tragedy into business”.
The risk, in fact, is there. Some of the companions put a lot of emphasis on supporting the necessity of the clash in the Strip, where the deaths – according to data from the local Ministry of Health, controlled by Hamas – have exceeded the absurd quota of 33 thousand. Furthermore, by doing an internet search, you come across a series of offers for tours to “discover the places of the massacre”. For a fee, of course. Finally, there is the impact that the continuous flow of visitors has on the affected kibbutzimwhere life slowly tries to start again.
In front of the yellow gate of Well yesterday, the vigilantes have now taken over the place of the military. The fence has been repaired and the main road is in order. Yet, it is enough to wander around the neighborhoods of Kerem or Zeitun to come across the rows of blackened rubble of houses and gardens – 124 in total -, on which a photo commemorates the murdered owners. Ninety-seven people, 15 percent of the kibbutz population. «I was lucky to live 40 meters away. They didn’t attack this neighborhood, Oranim, but I could hear everything. So my house is still there. And, above all, my family”, he says Natasha Cohen, born in South Africa and came to Israel at the age of 19 with a Christian volunteer organization.
«No, I’m not Jewish. But I married one and stayed. I have lived here for 15 years. The kibbutz is now the world, that’s why I came back”, she says as she walks accompanied by her dog Cuda. He decided this at the beginning of December after having spent the previous months in a hotel on the Red Sea where the community was temporarily housed. «At the beginning it was essential to stay together to console each other and grieve together. It was impossible to explain to those who had experienced our drama how much we were feeling. Then there were the awards, the funerals every week. A month later we still didn’t know how many were dead and how many were kidnapped. As time passed, however, I felt like a refugee in my own country.”
At the end of October, Natasha returned to the kibbutz for the first time to accompany a neighbor to get some documents. «I had to see with my own eyes and realize. It was terrible, until then it had seemed like a nightmare to me, I moved like a robot. Instead it was all true, including the death of five dear friends. To accept reality I had to deal with the guilt of having survived. At some point, I wanted control of my life back. So I found the strength to return.” Natasha now works in the Be’eri print shop and is responsible for running the fields “for when we all return, because we will return”. So far, around a hundred residents have returned and started to get the businesses back up and running with the help of volunteers from nearby communities.
Meanwhile, groups of visitors wander the driveways, empty houses and destroyed ones. There is also Stephen, who has just arrived from Reim with the other Americans. «They come by the hundreds, sometimes it’s hard to have to always repeat the same painful story. However, when I see their look at my words, I understand the importance of doing so”, he says Rami Gold, who returned to Be’eri part time for two months. «I stay here during the week and at the weekend I go to the Red Sea to visit my wife. She gives our daughter a hand with her grandchildren: their school here will only reopen in September.”
Unlike the house, which was intact, Rami’s garden was hit by a grenade. «I’m putting it back, one piece at a time. And I take care of the common jobs, I can’t sleep anyway…. If I stayed still I would collapse. And then there’s a lot to do. We have to rebuild Be’eri in one year.” Also Nili Bar Sinai shuttles between the Red Sea and Be’eri, where her husband Yoram was murdered. «Living in the same house without him is hard, of course. But where should I go? I have no other place. None of us have it – underlines the 73-year-old psychologist -. Not even the Gazans. This is why we just have to learn to live together.”
