Atrocities span history. They even extend to ancient texts like the Bible. Violence lasts too long if it lasts a second, but sometimes it does go on for years—the World Wars, the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide. Others seem endless, like the upheaval in Haiti.
And some last just a day and then appropriate the date for their name. The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the U.S. became 9/11, and now October 7 denotes the October 7, 2023, terrorist attacks on the region of Israel bordering Gaza.
As part of their multi-site attack on the so-called Gaza Envelope in Israel, Hamas militants assailed the town of Netiv HaAsara by paraglider and automobile, ultimately killing more than 20 community members, including security officers, and leaving one person missing but taking no hostages. Netiv HaAsara is an Israeli moshav, a type of cooperative agricultural town wherein residents each have an equal-sized plot of land on which to farm and use the produce or the profits for themselves.
Netiv HaAsara is located 100 meters from the northern border of Gaza, making it the nearest community to that territory among the Israeli communities that make up the Gaza Envelope. About 360 families, many of them avowed peace lovers, lived in Netiv HaAsara on October 7, but only parts or all of about 13 families were living there when I visited in early May 2024, courtesy of my Israeli hosts, who drove me there from Tel Aviv so that I could bear witness at another ground zero in my role as a disaster psychiatrist.
Omer and Yorem were among the few remaining residents of Netiv HaAsara and took time to host us while working as Israel Defense Force (IDF) reservists activated to protect their town. Our........