Thread by @Mr_Andrew_Fox

The best way to understand somewhere is firsthand. I went to Israel.
 
This is the first of a few threads. Everything I post is from primary sources and independently verified wherever possible. All photos & videos my own.
 
To begin: 7 October 2023.
 
Warning: violence.

🧵 1/

On 7 October, Hamas crossed the Gaza border in divisional strength. I’m going to use military jargon as this was not a rag-tag rabble. The numbers of trained and organised Hamas fighters were more than double the number of personnel the British sent to retake the Falklands in 1982.

They had detailed plans. Hamas had conducted reconnaissance of the kibbutzes near the border, possibly through some of the 18,000 Gazans with day work permits to enter Israel. Plans found on dead Hamas fighters showed an incredible level of detail on each house in Be’eri: “Man, woman, two children. Man has a gun. Dog does not bite”.

Hamas first attacked the houses of those Israelis known to be armed.

2/

Here is a video of just some of the munitions carried by Hamas that day. All were found within Israel’s borders, not subsequently in Gaza. Anti-tank mines and missiles. Home-made adapted thermobaric weapons for RPG-7s: these were used to burn Israeli civilians’ homes, along with the simpler burning of tyres to smoke out Israeli civilians cowering in their rocket protection safe rooms. Drones, machine guns and suicide vests. The square frame at the back is an explosive breaching frame of the type used to blow through the Gaza fence in 30 different places as Hamas fighters broke through. 3/

There was an impressive level of logistics. Hamas brought comprehensive med packs with them. Very quickly, cab ranks of empty vehicles lined up outside homesteads ready to receive hostages.

The attack had been preceded by years of deception to persuade Israel that Islamic Jihad, not Hamas, were the threat. Israeli encouraged Qatari money to flow into Gaza in the hope Hamas would focus on development.

Hundreds of Gazan civilians followed up the Hamas fighters and carried out some of the worst atrocities. This is verified by multiple eyewitnesses (some of whom I have spoken to myself) and the GoPro videos taken by Hamas fighters. 4/

On 6 October, Be’eri was a kibbutz of some 1,200 inhabitants, some 5km from the Gaza border. It is now a ruined shell. Over 130 Israelis were murdered there, with many more taken hostage.

The first thing Hamas fighters did after breaching Be’eri’s gates was to scale buildings and get high off the ground. They sited belt-fed weapons on rooftops and set up anti-armour ambushes ready for a security force response. They next took hostages and moved them to the cab rank and back to Gaza. Hamas and their civilian followers-on then raped, burned, tortured and murdered their way through the kibbutz. 5/

This is the home of David Karol. He was a cancer survivor in his 70s. He was tortured and murdered. We know he was tortured because his neighbours heard his screams. His attackers then torched his house. This small pile is all that was left of his belongings. 6/

This man was my guide in Be’eri. I have covered his face. He is stood next to a photo in memorial of his brother and four others.

His brother was part of the local security force. He died guarding the key road junction next to the medical centre and the kindergarten (second photo). You can see the bullet holes in the kindergarten wall. 7/

My guide’s matter-of-fact stoicism was humbling. His words stayed with me as he spoke of the view of the survivors. In a left-wing, collectivist, peace-supporting settlement: “People don’t believe in peace anymore”. It’s not that they don’t want peace: they have lost hope in it.

Nearby Israeli artillery fired into Gaza in the background as he spoke, as a jolting punctuation to his words. Be’eri is close enough to Gaza to hear the echo of 30mm cannon from operations near the Netzarim Corridor. As hummingbirds hovered, a Hermes 450 flew overhead. 8/

The soot stills hangs in the air. The scent feels dirty. A sensory accusation of grief tourism. Visiting feels like an intrusion, an imposition, a violation of privacy. I apologised to my guide for being there. I had to remind myself I was not there to drink from their font of grief for my own satisfaction, but instead to take that precious water and share it with others, to keep alive the memory of their loss in the world beyond Israel’s borders.
 
Even whilst frozen in the moment of atrocity, there is a beauty to Be’eri. You can see it peering out in horror from behind the ruin and the bullet holes and the ash of corpses. Children’s toys and footballs that will never be played with or kicked around again. A discarded child’s pacifier dummy, crushed under foot on the ground next to the kindergarten. Fruit trees and hummingbirds. This was a place tended with love and care. It will be again. Soon it will be razed, and the community will rebuild. “Come back in two years; it will be beautiful again.” 9/

This is the memorial at the site of the Nova festival. Hamas’ intelligence was not perfect. They didn’t expect the festival. The organisers had unexpectedly extended it by a day. There is a theory that the easy target of the festival distracted Hamas fighters from a deeper incursion into Israel and gave the IDF time to block the vital road junction to Tel Aviv. 10/

The Nova site and Hostage Square in Tel Aviv (second photo) are the most tangible public reminders of Israeli pain. The national trauma of 7th October is a bleeding wound in a deeply interconnected and familial society. Almost everyone in Israel is no more than two degrees of separation from a victim in the massacre. Visits to these sites are marked by Israelis with red-rimmed, tear-filled eyes. Their faces are crushed by grief, imploding inwards on themselves as they weep.

One IDF soldier I met there had a new tattoo. The date of 7.10.23 and four stones: one for each member of his immediate family who were slaughtered that day.
 
As an aside, I met the families of hostages; IDF soldiers; politicians and ordinary Israelis. I will expand on this in another thread. They expressed a mix of views about Israel’s response, but amongst ordinary Israelis what struck me was sadness, rather than a blood-thirsty desire for vengeance. I met a lady who had her mother taken hostage and later released; one brother remains a hostage; another brother was killed on 7th October. She showed an incredible compassion and dignity. Her words stayed with me. “Every civilian life is precious. We just want our people home. It’s not a war we started but it is a war we cannot lose.” 11/

The massacre took place on a national holiday. The IDF was stood down and dispersed. The initial response fell upon the Community Security Teams. Their weapons were kept in central armouries. Hamas reconnaissance knew this. Too often, these teams were ambushed by their armouries and murdered before they could reach their weapons.

Initial IDF response units were whatever could be cobbled together; often light role or special forces teams that had to wait for armoured support to breach the Hamas defences and ambushes. The terrain in the kibbutzes is a luxurious, dense jungle of bushes, trees, foliage. Perfect for Hamas; hellish for liberators to fight through. The IDF incurred significant casualties. As a former infantry officer, I cringed seeing the complex terrain in which they had to manoeuvre. No small wonder it took days to eliminate every attacker. 12/

I heard remarkable tales of heroism. I met Menachem. He lives 75km away from Be’eri. He and his brother Elhanan heard of the attacks, donned uniforms and weapons, and drove south. They reached Be’eri and spent the night independently running missions into the kibbutz to rescue trapped civilians. Just the two of them, later joined by a nephew. After nearly 40 hours without sleep and over 100 civilians rescued, on their last mission Menachem was shot through the arm, and Elhanan  through the chest. Menachem survived; Elhanan did not.



13/timesofisrael.com/israel-prize-f…

I met Daniel Sharabi. He and his brother, partygoers at Nova and IDF reservists, climbed onto a tank and manned the empty gun, saving the lives of many festival goers. You can see their story here.



14/

7th October 2003 was the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust and the worst ever terror attack on Israeli soil. Hamas trained, reconnoitred, planned, and deployed a heavily armed irregular division: more troops than the British Army initially sent to pacify the whole of Helmand Province in 2006.

It is through the lens of this national trauma that any conversation about the ongoing conflict in and around Israel must be framed.
 
More to come. #NeverAgain 14/14

Oh. Worth mentioning. People in London celebrated this on the day.

*2023, obvs. Typo.