In verdant vineyard, the cost of October 7 horrors for both Israel and Hamas are laid bare 

Nir Oz, Israel – On Monday morning, on either side of a southern Israel vineyard bordering Gaza, the heavy costs of October 7 for both Israel and Hamas are laid bare. Israeli mortars are pounding the suburbs of Khan Yunis, once a city of about 200,000 in southern Gaza. We are on the Israeli side, where we hear the irregular thumps of mortars, then witness the rising smoke as they land. All we can see from the Israeli side is rubble, but evidently terrorists are still active. Intermittently, there is the rat-rat-tat of automatic weapons fire, and the roar of an Israeli jet prosecuting the Jewish state’s renewed assault on the Hamas-led territory. Nir Oz was the hardest-hit kibbutz on October 7, with about 45 people killed and about 80 taken hostage. A group of Canadian journalists, on a trip sponsored by the Exigent Foundation, has come here to listen to Shlomo Margalit, an 87-year-old, native-born Israeli who co-founded the kibbutz in the 1950s. He is telling us about the horrors of October 7, but manages to find moments of humour with the comic timing of Larry David. “That’s a good question!” he tells one visitor who asked about the painted markings on each house left behind by the IDF search after the attack. “You know why that’s a good question? Because I have the answer!” He casts an eye on an Israeli Defense Forces Jeep passing on a security road: “Where were they on October 7?” The IDF never fought for Nir Oz. Hamas caught all of Israel flat-footed, but nowhere more so than Nir Oz. The terrorists arrived here, and overcame fierce resistance from the kibbutz’s security team within a few hours. They murdered residents, set homes ablaze and took hostages, then left when they were done. The army arrived later. Margalit takes us on a short tour; he’s done this dozens of times in the 19 months since October 7. “Each apartment is a story. Is a book!” Nir Oz is where Israeli-American-Canadian couple Judi Weinstein Haggai and Gadi Haggai were taken hostage, and where nine-month-old Kfir Bibas and his four-year-old brother Ariel were taken hostage with their family. All were later killed. He takes us to the home of the Siman Tov family — a couple with young twins and a toddler, all killed, the house mangled and burned. “Over there lived a single woman, she’s a nurse,” he tells us. She was taken hostage, and released after 50 days after an internment in which she, via a wilful personality, strong-armed Hamas into letting her treat some of the other hostages, he says. He tells of another woman kidnapped by two men with knives. He points out the flags adorning each house, signifying what happened there. A black flag means murder, a yellow flag abduction. If the yellow flag has a blue patch, the resident was released. A red patch means the hostage was murdered. We stop at a small recycling depot, a concrete half-walled enclosure. This was where three members of the security team met their deaths. He cautions us not to write that they were murdered; they were “killed in combat.” “They fought here,” he tells us. He tells us the story of another member of the security team who survived because his wife pulled him to safety after he was shot. The man blames himself, Margalit says, although it’s obvious to everyone he should not. “He lives now in Denmark. We are hoping he may come back.” Despite the passage of time, and Margalit’s gentle humour as we walk the pathways of Nir Oz, the trauma is inescapable. “Here lived a family. Parents, two kids, and a dog,” he says outside one home. Nobody lives here anymore, although the kibbutz’s agricultural work continues. Beyond the vineyard, but still on the Israeli side, we see tractors working a field, continuing on with Israel’s successful effort to make the desert bloom even as mortars land what seems like only a few hundred yards away. The survivors of Nir Oz, like almost all residents of southern Israel neighbouring Gaza, have been relocated to central Israel. Many, including Margalit, hope to return, although his wife does not. He shrugs when asked how they’ll manage to resolve that issue, and a listener is left with the impression his wife may get her way. Either way, he will be cheering on the new “pioneers,” replicating the work he and others who founded the kibbutz did. Those who do return must struggle with the question of how to remember what happened here. Margalit asks, do they simply tear down the house where the Siman Tovs, the young couple with twins and a toddler, lived a life full of love and died at the hands of terrorists? The house is in the middle of the kibbutz; do they want to burden the playful children of future generations with a memorial to the murdered children of this one? The residents of Nir Oz will pay the price of October 7 for generations, as will the Palestinians who used to live close by. The mortar thumps have followed us on Margalit’s tour, the fruit of a fresh Israeli ground offensive launched on the weekend. Any rebuilding of Khan Yunis will be an even bigger task.

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