Since the creation of Israel, in 1948, war conflicts have been a constant for the Israeli population, but the killings and kidnappings that took place on Saturday, October 7, in the towns and communities close to the Gaza Strip have caused an unprecedented impact on Israeli consciences.
At 8:25 a.m. on Saturday, October 7, Moshe Rozen, a 72-year-old Argentinian-Israeli resident who lives in Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak, an agricultural community located about 4 kilometers from the Gaza Strip, began to hear projectiles flying over the village . He and his wife went to take shelter in the armored shelter they have at home, which is common in homes near Gaza. The noises began to be heard closer and closer and soon they realized that they had entered the kibbutz.
Suddenly they heard the attackers knocking down the door of their house. They were inside. Together with his wife, they tried to block the door of the shelter, but they also knocked it down. Hamas militiamen shot them and took them to the border with Gaza, where they announced that they were kidnapped. Then Moshe decided to bet it all and ran away with his wife.
They managed to get back to their house, which they found destroyed, and waited there for hours until an armored ambulance arrived to take them to a regional hospital. The center was completely saturated, “full of wounded”. Noels were able to attend, so they moved to a hospital in Jerusalem, where they are still recovering from their injuries.
“Beyond the great physical pain, I am very shocked,” said Moshe by phone. For him, the hardest thing is to realize that things as horrible as the killings take place in real life. These days he and many Israelis have discovered the cruelty and brutality, either firsthand or through the images and videos of Hamas victims that have been circulating on the Internet.
In the eyes of the Israeli population, this war is something unusual. For years people have lived in kibbutzim a few kilometers from the Gaza Strip in relative peace. This feeling may have come from Israel’s effective security system or the limited Israeli casualties throughout the entire conflict. From the beginning of the first intifada in 1987 until September of this year, 87% of those killed due to the clashes were of Palestinian origin, according to the Israeli oenagé B’Tselem. But this time it was different, the Israeli population suffers from the war much more than usual.
October 7 this year was the deadliest day in Israel’s history, with a total of 1,300 fatalities. The killings by Hamas that day caused a shock. “This is life’s worst nightmare,” said Ben Mirvis, a young Israeli from Tel-Aviv. Whereas for Sol, an inhabitant of another kibbutz attacked by Hamas and who has been without food or sleep for days, the violence of Hamas is “inexplicable and exceeds the limits of humanity”.
Many Israelis believe that Hamas must be stopped. “I’m sorry for the civilian population in Gaza, but we have to defend ourselves because they’re killing us,” said Ben. In response to the attacks by Hamas, the Israeli Government has not stopped bombing the Gaza Strip in the last week, an enclave where at least 2,750 people have lost their lives since hostilities began. To protect the Israeli population, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to “destroy Hamas.” But to achieve this goal, the people of Gaza pay a high price.
“Peace can be reached if both can live in peace”, added Sol. But the new war will only add another layer of pain and resentment to both sides of the conflict and further distance them from a long-term solution. The recent attacks by Hamas will cause people with a more moderate view of the conflict to take more radical positions, Moshe believes. For him, who describes himself as a defender of coexistence between the Palestinian and Israeli peoples and who declares himself an activist of the Peace Now movement, all this is a great disappointment.
