October 7 was a national nightmare for Israel. The day was marked by a catastrophic terrorist attack that left hundreds of Israelis dead—a shock to the national psyche. This day was Israel’s 9/11, Tet Offensive, and Pearl Harbor rolled up into one.
Thanks to assistance and training from Iran, this attack by Hamas, which was several weeks in the making, began with a hellacious rocket barrage that provided cover for a sophisticated land, air, and sea assault along the Gaza border. Around 1,000 terrorists invaded Southern Israel, which led to hours of slaughter, rape, and kidnappings.
Hamas took at least 100 Israelis hostage. The images and videos were ghastly. Entire families were wiped out. In Kibbutz Be'eri, over 100 bodies were discovered, including babies. Hamas went door-to-door, killing as many Israelis as they could find. They tried to wipe out whole towns here (via Times of Israel):
They just found 100 bodies in Be'eri. We are witnessing entire Jewish towns being wiped out. I don't have any words
— Daniella Greenbaum Davis (@DGreenbaum) October 9, 2023
108 bodies discovered in Kibbutz Be’eri: women, children, entire families. That’s 10% of the town’s residents. Let the world know. pic.twitter.com/YvXs3oulNu
— Eli Kowaz (@elikowaz) October 9, 2023
Carrying out the dead from Kibbutz Be’eri.
— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) October 10, 2023
Entire families wiped out. Young and old.
Hamas shot, beat, burned, and violated the members of the community. pic.twitter.com/4yOKFsyRsy
About 100 bodies have been removed from Kibbutz Be’eri, Hebrew media report, citing the ZAKA search and rescue group
Channel 12 reports that the bodies were removed in refrigerated trucks.
The number of victims killed in the devastated kibbutz, home to some 1,000 residents, is thought to be even higher, according to the reports.
The kibbutz was also home to peace activist Vivian Silver, who spent 50 years making inroads between Israeli and Palestinian communities in this part of the world, part of her goal to create a society where peaceful coexistence is possible. She’s now missing, with many close to her fearing the worst (via NBC News):
As soon as she heard that Hamas militants were launching attacks in Israel, Avital Brown sent a WhatsApp message to her friend Vivian Silver, a Canadian-born peace activist who lived near the Gaza Strip.
In less than a minute, Silver, 74, responded from her home in Kibbutz Be’eri.
“It’s absolute chaos here,” she wrote in Hebrew at 7:54 a.m. Saturday, according to text messages shared with NBC News. “Terrorists have infiltrated Be’eri. There is shooting and screaming.”
Brown replied immediately but never heard back.
Silver is among those feared to have been killed on the spot or abducted by the militants and taken to Gaza, a place she knows well.
For nearly 50 years, Silver has worked to improve the plight of Palestinians and create a shared society between Jews and Arabs, having gone so far as to meet cancer-stricken Gaza residents at the border crossing and drive them to Jerusalem for treatment.
The silver-haired grandmother is regarded on both sides of the border as an irrepressible force, according to those who know and work with her.
That should tell you all you need to know about Hamas. They don’t want peace. They want to destroy Israel. You all know this; this is more for the folks who still erroneously think this is some righteous rebellion against Israeli oppression. For once, CNN had a good segment on this:
.@NicRobertsonCNN: "But I'm moving on. But I wanted to share that because it's important for people to understand, but I'll move on to tonight and what's happening here where we are now."@JakeTapper: "You don’t actually — Nic, you don’t actually have to move on."
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) October 9, 2023
Robertson:… pic.twitter.com/N9yljfWES7
.@NicRobertsonCNN: "[I]t was so organized, Jake. You — you look at the Hamas vehicles there. And they've all got numbers on them and you see the body armor of Hamas laying on the ground where they had been killed. You see everything’s numbered. This was organized. They came in in… pic.twitter.com/5VFiY0W2dJ
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) October 9, 2023
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