A year later, Israel still has not healed the wounds of the tragedy that unleashed the war in the Middle East

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A metal fence and barely a kilometer of field separate this area of ​​Israel from the Palestinian enclave from which the Islamist group Hamas launched a series of terrorist attacks against the south of the Hebrew country on the fateful October 7, 2023. A year later, the Scars not only remain open in Israel, but have grown on different fronts, bringing the region to the brink of all-out war.

We walk the streets of Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of the symbols of the barbarism suffered at the hands of terrorists. A year later, the burned-out houses, shelter doors riddled with bullet holes, and stains of dried blood make it difficult for the few residents who decided to return to forget that nightmare in which hundreds of armed men took it by storm, murdering 110 of their 417 inhabitants and kidnapping another fifty.

“From the first day I feel that they are alive. And I talk to them, from the heart and out loud too. Suddenly I shout their names, I scream and I start laughing. My partner sees me laughing and doesn’t understand what’s happening to me, but it’s because I imagine that the day they come back they’re going to ask me why I yelled at them so much.” says Ruthy Strum, mother of Iair and Eitan, two of those kidnapped in Nir Oz, in a broken voice.

The coordinated attack by Hamas began with a massive bombing of all of southern Israel, followed by an offensive in which some two thousand terrorists took control of 15 towns for hours, killing some 1,200 people and kidnapping another 251.

– Bloody Festival –

On the day of the attack, just a ten-minute drive from Nir Oz, in the Negev Desert, the Tribe of Nova music festival was taking place, created to honor “friendship, love and infinite freedom,” according to its organizers. Today, almost 400 flags installed as a tribute remember the young people who were murdered there by the dozens of terrorists who arrived aboard pick-up trucks, motorcycles and paragliders.

Another 40 attendees were beaten and taken hostage. Omer Wenkert, then 22 years old, was among them.

“He was kidnapped from the festival, he had gone with his friend Kim, who was killed. Omer worked in a restaurant, he is a very positive boy, very loving and he suffers from colitis. He went to the festival to celebrate peace and ended up seeing things that cannot be understood, there is no logic behind the barbarities that happened there“, says Ricardo Grichener, Omer’s uncle, from inside a replica of the tunnels built by Hamas and in which they would keep the 101 hostages who have not yet been released.

US intelligence estimates that only half are still alive. Ricardo trusts that Omer is one of them, even though he has not heard from his nephew since day 59 after the attack, when one of his friends was freed in the only exchange of hostages for prisoners agreed between Hamas and Israel to date. .

This Monday, Omer’s family and those of the rest of the hostages will gather in front of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, in what has been renamed Kidnapped Square, to demand his release like every Saturday of the last year. The request goes not only to Hamas, but also to his own government, which many accuse of not having negotiated enough.

– Regional conflict –

“This was worse than 9/11. Americans suffered some terrible attacks, with planes crashing into the Twin Towers, but the level of cruelty we saw here is unparalleled. There were women mutilated, their bodies were abused, babies were put in ovens and lit on fire. It was terrible, that’s not human”says an Israeli driver of Iraqi descent as his gaze wanders among the photos of the victims installed at the Nova memorial.

It took Israeli security forces until the afternoon to control the situation in the country. That same day, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government promised “destroy” to Hamas and officially declared war on it.

Since then, Israel bombed the Gaza Strip and sent its troops to the ground, managing to eliminate almost all of the armed Hamas brigades, but, at the same time, leaving around 42,000 dead, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, which claims that at least one in four victims was a child.

The Israeli counteroffensive has been the subject of widespread criticism from the international community. The Hebrew country is accused of responding disproportionately and has even been accused of genocide by South Africa before the International Court of Justice. The disagreements that he had for a long time with the UN have also worsened and led to Secretary General António Guterres being declared persona non grata in the Hebrew country.

As for local public opinion, the only survey conducted on the matter by the Pew Research Center at the end of May shows that 39% agree with the government’s measures and 34% feel that they could go further.

But this conflict is far from being limited to the diplomatic and social level. On October 8, 2023, while Israel was still counting its victims, the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah launched a wave of missiles over the north of the country.

The war against Hezbollah has led to some 60,000 Israelis being displaced from the north. In response, the Hebrews have left almost two thousand dead and nine thousand wounded on the Lebanese side.

In just over two weeks, Hezbollah has also lost hundreds of its men through surprise attacks that turned its beepers and radios into explosives, suffered the elimination of Hasan Nasrallah, its top leader for more than 30 years, and is currently They try to stop an Israeli ground offensive south of the Litani River.

On Tuesday, October 1, Iran – accused of financing and directing Hezbollah, Hamas, Yemen’s Houthis and Iraqi militias – entered directly into the conflict by launching some 180 missiles at Israel. The Hebrew high command promised a forceful response. A situation that will further escalate this complex conflict, endangering not only the Middle East, but the entire world. And opening new wounds when the current ones have not yet healed.

“It was the only thing left between the terrorists and the families”

The anti-missile alarm woke up Jardem Reskim on the morning of October 7, 2023. More accustomed than surprised, as a result of the altered normality under which the turbulent south of Israel lives, he went with his wife, Samantha, and little Libi and Ori, ages 1 and 3, to the armored shelter they have at home.

What Jardem didn’t know was that there would be nothing normal about this day.

“I was still a little asleep, so I didn’t really understand what was happening. My wife was the first to notice that they were shooting, I told her it was impossible because we were on Shabbat. But then I heard a gunshot next to the house and I realized that the siren had not been sounding for 10 or 20 seconds but had been doing so for minutes.”recalls the almost 40-year-old man as we walk the streets of Kibbutz Mefalsim just 9 kilometers from the Gaza Strip.

Like the majority of the population in this country, both Jardem and Samantha served in the Israeli army and later became reservists. He was also a member of the security force within the kibbutz.

Due to his thin and small build, some neighbors made fun of the fact that this man who normally works as a landscaper was in charge of taking care of them. “Now he is a hero to us”, clarifies a neighbor from Mefalsim.

On the day of the attacks, Jardem took his gun and put on his bulletproof vest. “It’s like a fire extinguisher, you have it at home but you think you’ll never need it, until you have to use it. I put on some jeans, a t-shirt and had a coffee that my wife made before leaving. Only outside did I begin to understand what was happening.“, remember.

When he left, he met one of his colleagues, who was going to alert the neighbors. Jardem, for his part, began to walk through the streets of the kibbutz until he reached the main entrance. “Outside there were three men dressed in black with their backs to me, when they turned I saw their AK-47s. We don’t use those weapons. I opened fire, one fell and the other two ran to the gate. I skirted some houses and saw that two other companions were fighting. When I managed to observe the enemy group, I discovered that there were 25 terrorists, they had rocket launchers, AK-47s, everything.”, he tells a group of Ibero-American media who have arrived at the place, among which is The Commerce.

The confrontations between Jardem, his companions and the terrorists lasted for hours, until the attackers understood that they had to look for another entrance. “At 9:05 in the morning, more or less, an army helicopter flew over the kibbutz and for 40 seconds it gave all the fire it had against that area.”he says while pointing to Gaza. “It turns out that there were 100 or 150 terrorists who were preparing to come and the helicopter stopped them”.

At nine at night the situation seemed under control in the kibbutz. Only then did Jardem notice that his thighs were bleeding from the constant friction of his jeans for almost 14 hours. He asked for relief, went home, met his family and explained to them what had happened. “I left the gun with Samantha, I told her it was hot and not to disarm it, to be warned. I went to shower, put on my uniform, took my gun, sat on the edge of the bed and fell asleep. My body disconnected, I couldn’t take it anymore”recalls the man.

Three hours later he woke up, sitting up and with his finger still on the trigger. He called the kibbutz security chief and he informed him that the Army had already arrived. “Stay with your family, protect them, there are enough forces here“, they told him.

Today, a year after that unprecedented episode, Jardem tours the kibbutz with us. A T-shirt and shorts have replaced the bulletproof vest and military uniform. In his hand he no longer carries a gun, but a cup of coffee and a cigarette. “We were away from home for 10 months, we came occasionally to work on the trauma and only on August 15 did we return”, he assures.

“This may sound bad, but at that moment you don’t think about them (your family) but about yourself and that they won’t hurt you. That is the only way to defend them. I am a son of the kibbutz, I was born here, I have always lived here. And at that moment we were the only thing left between the terrorists and our families’ homes.“, sentence.