'I visited Israeli village hit by Hamas - the people I met are probably dead'

12 October 2023 , 14:50

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Israeli soldiers remove the bodies of civilians in Kfar Aza (Image: Getty Images)

I visited the Kfar Aza kibbutz in June. I had lunch in the communal dining hall where the elderly residents told me how the Kibbutz was founded. They are probably dead now.

I was shown the creche where children play the ‘green game’ of pretending to run for cover in the event of a rocket attack. Some of those children were beheaded. I remember asking if it was really necessary for there to be a bomb shelter on every corner and for every house to have a safe room. These spaces were no refuge from Hamas terrorism.

I chatted with a woman from London in her sixties who said she had no regrets about leaving the grey skies of Britain for the sun-filled land of Israel. Did she survive? Dozens of her fellow residents didn’t. And what of the young, blonde Israeli women who showed us round the Kibbutz?

‘I look like Barbie but I’m really strong,” she said. I have been thinking of her and her young family constantly in the last few days. Was she strong enough? Did her family get to the safe room in time? Are they still alive?

You don’t want to imagine the alternative. You don’t want to think of the horror they witnessed or suffered. The residents of Kfar Aza always knew they were at risk. You do not have to walk far before you see a building bearing the scars of a rocket attack.

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An IDF Soldier covers his nose while walking past the bodies of Hamas militants and Israeli civilians (Getty Images)

They have seen their neighbours killed before. One died because he failed to make it to the shelter in the five seconds you have between the siren sounding and the missiles landing. He was torn to shreds by a mortar bomb parked with nails.

But the slaughter inflicted this week by the Hamas terrorists was a new level of barbarity. The killings were deliberate. Their victims were the old and the very young, the mother and the grandmother, the father and the grandfather.

By attacking a kibbutz, Hamas was attacking the soul of Israel. These communal places of living speak of the optimism and idealism of Israel’s founders. They wanted to build a land where people worked together, lived together and prayed together. Kfar Aza still tries to uphold some of these ideals.

There is the communal dining room where we shared a lunch of chicken, rice and hummus. There are playing fields, a community swimming pool and weekly music and dancing in the town hall. It had the feel of 1950s holiday camp rather than a village on the frontline of a war zone.

Bullet holes and blood stains visible on a door in Kfar Aza (Getty Images)

Despite the danger which comes from its proximity to the Gaza border, there is a waiting list for people wanting to join the community. You can understand why. This was a little Garden of Eden with flower-lined streets, green spaces and carefully tended front gardens.

Even the bomb shelters were painted in bright colours to make them look less daunting for young children. As we were shown round they warned us not to step in the long grass, not because of discarded munitions but because of the snakes.

In retrospect it seems absurd that this was seen as the biggest danger we might have faced. Living in paradise came at a price. The kibbutz was surrounded by a razor wire fences. There were sensors on the fences to warn of any breach. In the distance you can see surveillance posts manned by the Israeli Defence Force. There are gates at the two main road entrances which are closed immediately there is a warning of a possible attack.

Patrolling soldiers near burned and destroyed houses after an attack by militants (Getty Images)

Many of the houses have metal awnings over the windows to shield from the rocket attacks. Our guide walked us to the edge of the kibbutz from where you can see the Gaza Strip less than a mile away. Hamas terrorists crossed this land to inflict their slaughter on Kfar Aza.

She told us how her mother used to cycle from the kibbutz down to the shore at Gaza to go swimming. “Did she think that one day she too would be able to cycle down to the beach? “ I asked her. “Things are changing. I’m 27. Of course we’d like to think we could do that ourselves one day,” she said.

Then she added: “They (Hamas) want to kill us because we are Jews.” It was a frighteningly accurate prophecy. Hamas did arrive, They brought evil to Eden. They killed because they wanted to destroy the Jewish people.

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We were in Kfar Aza for just a few hours. We don’t yet know how many of the people we met were killed or kidnapped. We will remember their kindness and generosity and how they still held on to the ideal of building a new life in a new country.

Jason Beattie