The Monsters Murdered the Innocents

By Rolene Marks

“Monsters aren’t real,” we tell our children. We check under the beds and in the cupboards and leave nightlights on to reassure them that they are safe – but the monsters are real. Too real.

On the 360th day following 7 October, I visited Kibbutz Nir Oz and other communities and areas attacked, with a small group of foreign press at the invitation of the Government Press Office. On 7 October 2023, this little slice of paradise along the border with Gaza became a killing field for monsters that live beyond the fence. The monsters that lie beyond the bucolic paradise in the edge of the Western Negev. That black Sabbath, which was also the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, the monsters invaded, leaving a trail of carnage as they plundered, raped, burned, mutilated, murdered and stole families in and from their homes.

The definitive image that seared 7 October into the conscience of many, albeit too few around the world, was the footage of a beautiful young mother, Shiri Bibas, cradling her two flame-haired children protectively in her arms, her face contorted in terror, as armed monsters stole them away to the terror tunnels of Gaza. Mere weeks later, they were murdered in captivity, by the hands of the depraved.

Kibbutz Nir Oz suffered more damage per capita than any of the other attacked communities. About 60 percent of the homes were destroyed, most set alight with their occupants inside them. Only six houses remain untouched. On that black Sabbath, a quarter of the community was either murdered or kidnapped by Hamas. One in four.

Toys were still strewn across the front of the Bibas house, a home that once rang out with the delicious, infectious laughter of children; and burst at the seams with love is now a mournful witness to a loss that is unbearable. On the front of the house, posters of the family reminded everyone of their fate on that horrendous day. The images of Yarden with his kind brown eyes, beautiful Shiri and her dazzling smile and those two gorgeous flame haired little angels. The images of Ariel barreling down the path in Nir Oz in his beloved Batman costume, the delicious, gummy toothless grin of Kfir and the family dog, Tonto, proudly keeping watch overt his human charges. We know the ending to this horror story. Tonto and 59 other dogs were murdered on 7 October.

The image of a terrified mother and her babies cuts to the core of who we are as Jews, as humans. Mothers and babies are a promise of a future and of the continuity of a people. The Nazis knew this and so do these monsters.

Shiri’s parents, Yossi and Margalit were murdered on 7 October. Three generations of one family murdered by the monsters who did not see them as human.

There is a little hook in the kindergarten, ‘Gan Tut’ (Strawberry) where Ariel hung his school bag. The pomegranates that the kids made on the drying board, waiting to be painted are still on the drying table. It was difficult to breathe inside this place dotted with tiny furniture, books and all the accoutrements that kindergartens have. Almost a year later, the air was still thick and acrid from smoke. The safe room burnt; the walls blackened. The monsters came for the most vulnerable.

Walking through the kibbutz, where bright magenta bougainvillea are set against the backdrop of blackened and burnt houses, the stench of death wafts through. The smell of death is difficult to describe but unmistakable and it never leaves your senses. Death never leaves.

One of these burnt homes belonged to Oded and Yocheved Lifschitz. It was a home where music rang out as Oded played the piano, and their prize cactus garden drew admirers. Oded, who drove Palestinian children who needed cancer treatment to hospitals every week as a volunteer for The Road to Recovery | NGO was kidnapped and murdered in captivity.

I remember standing inside the remnants of his house, listening to Rita, his wonderful sister-in-law speaking about how every Friday, they would drink a beer together and how she hoped someone in Gaza would recognize him from his volunteering and helping the children of Gaza and treat him kindly.

Eulogizing her husband at his funeral, Yocheved said:

“Our abduction and your death have shaken me to the core. We fought all through the years for social justice, for peace. To my sorrow, we were hit by a terrible blow by those we helped on the other side. I stand here staggered to see the number of graves, and the terrible destruction of our community that was completely abandoned on October 7.”

Two families, each one a universe – and there were so many more, on Kibbutz Nir Oz and others on that day. Each home tells a devastating story.

Hamas murdered grandfathers and peace activists, a lioness mother and her cubs, nature lovers and peacemakers, whole families, music festival revelers, warriors and artists, nation builders and healers and more.

Most telling about Israeli resilience were the first words said by former hostage, 80-year-old Gadi Mozes – an agronomist from Nir Oz, whose wife was murdered and who spent nearly 500 days in captivity:

“I will do everything in my power to rebuild Nir Oz.”

Monsters in every story are eventually vanquished by the hero. Nir Oz is a community of heroes. Gadi’s promise to rebuild is the sword a hero wields.  

While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).