"When I was injured, I said it might have been a mistake," Gadi Yarkoni told me this week. "After all, how many people are there in Hamas – 50,2 criminals out of <> million residents? But after the bloody Shabbat, it became clear to me that everyone living in Gaza is the same.
"Listen to how I talk. I wanted to fix their garbage problems in the Gaza Strip, to take care of their water and electricity. I said, as long as it's good for them, so will I. I didn't want peace, I wanted to live side by side. Today? I am convinced that it is impossible. I saw who had entered our houses. People with crutches. A mob came to destroy us. That's it, it's over. We need to go through a generation or two in a general disconnection, and then maybe we will be able to freeze the hatred until it disappears. At the moment, it is too big, and the State of Israel is not currently engaged in a war of existence, but in a war of no return for its image."
Gadi Yarkoni, Head of the Eshkol Council on the division into risk areas: "You are talking like before October 7" // Photo: From the Knesset Channel
In the summer of 2014, an hour before the ceasefire in Operation Protective Edge, a mortar shell fell near Gadi Yarkoni in Kibbutz Nirim, taking both of his legs. A year later, he became head of the Eshkol Regional Council, and did not lose his smile even when Qassam rockets fell and tensions rose. His description of life in the Gaza envelope – 99 percent heaven, one percent hell – sounds good. But then came the Saturday of October 7, and everything changed.
Earlier this week, I met with Yarkoni at the Eshkol Regional Council near Gaza. It wasn't until 20:00 P.M. that he had some time to receive me. He doesn't mince words when describing as a Holocaust what happened to the council, which suffered a terrible blow on that Black Sabbath from black. Out of 17,185 residents of the Eshkol Regional Council, 200 were murdered. Yarkoni estimates that the number will reach 120, and another <> are defined as abducted and missing. Kibbutz Be'eri and Kibbutz Nir Oz will have trouble getting up from the ruins. In his kibbutz alone, Nirim, five were killed and five were kidnapped.
"I didn't go to any funeral, because of the shortness of time and because I can't be in the yes part and the no part," he said. "The numbers are indigestible, and we ourselves are slowly losing humanity. After all, you say, 'Only five were killed here.' But one kill is hell. There will be so many people next to whom in the cemetery will be buried the son, husband, wife or granddaughter. It's not the same life. 200 widows, widowers and orphans. There are those whose whole family has gone. As in the 40s, murder and with it a pogrom. They set fire to a house, waited for people to jump out of the window, and then shot them. I sat with a brigadier general who told me: 'If I die, it's legitimate. I am a military man. But what the hell did they want from you?'"
In 2014, after the injury. "I didn't see a psychologist", photo: Yossi Zeliger
"Going on, can't let go"
Our previous meeting took place on the council grounds, when the wheat fields sparkled in all their glory and when the good smell of earth hovered in the air. At the beginning of the week, as I made my way to the war room, the darkness, oppressive and silent, was ominous. Above Ofakim, Iron Dome intercepted a rocket, dozens of transporters and heavy vehicles moved slowly toward the Gaza Strip, and just before the Ma'on junction, a paratrooper force stopped me and asked me to wait for an escort. Today in the Eshkol Regional Council there is no trace of the vibrant pioneering that characterized it.
Yarkoni, 56, greeted me with red eyes from lack of sleep. Soldiers were running around, running forces in the field, while he urgently asked to get him the CEO of the Israel Electric Corporation, Meir Spiegler, to solve a problem in one of the communities in the region.
"Meir, your people can't find the fault and want us to bring maps, but we don't have maps, because the electrician was murdered," Yarkoni explains. "Please send a senior team to get by without maps. Only you can save us."
With Maj. Gen. (res.) Doron Almog at the evacuees hotel in Eilat. "There are residents who decided not to return, and I'm not angry with them," Photo: Yehuda Ben Yattach
When he finished the conversation, Yarkoni admitted softly: "I'm exhausted, but I'm not collapsing. Must go on, can't let go, because I have a responsibility. I believed in the concept that Hamas would not be able to cross the underground barrier. I believed that if the IDF was on our side, it couldn't happen. I saw how the brigade and division trained, how much they cared about the settlements. I told the residents, 'It's safe to live here,' and to people who were debating whether to live here, I explained that the state had invested billions of shekels. I always said, 'There's almost no chance they'll penetrate through the ground, but I can't promise that there won't be mortar or Qassam rockets here.' I was wrong, because they did something that I thought passed away after the Holocaust. What happened here is Nazism for its own sake. Everything collapsed in one moment."
On Saturday, October 7, at 6:30 A.M., Gadi was sleeping with his wife, Shoham, in the bedroom of their home, which also serves as a safe room. The alarm went off, and their daughter Libby, a soldier who was on leave from the army, rushed into the room. Zohar Sha'ar, the psychologist of the regional school, who was taking a morning walk at the time, also knocked on the door and was invited to join. It looks like another red color that will be followed by a quick return to normal.
"At first I didn't understand what was happening," Yarkoni admits. "My son, Ofek, serves in the Southern Brigade, and that Saturday he was at the base and saw everything through the screens. He didn't tell me there was no army in the area, he just asked: 'Be strong and lock the door well.' Then I start getting messages, one after the other, about infiltrations into communities, and I don't understand what's going on. I call Ogdonner and tell him, 'Send an army.' He says, 'Yes, yes, I send.' A few more minutes pass and I keep getting calls for help, and I call the OC Southern Command: 'Yaron [Finkelman], what's going on? Send forces, they're taking over the communities here,' and he says, 'Yes, I'm sending.'"
It sounds like the fall of the Bar-Lev line.
"Worse. They call you on the phone, they leave messages from civilians begging 'send aid, they're killing us,' and I say, 'I'm sending,' and the army doesn't show up. And when the first force does manage to enter Bari, it is badly damaged. I ask that they bring more strength. I didn't realize how many terrorists were there, I thought there were 20-30. You hear the head of the kibbutz army begging 'Where's the help?' I don't have much to say to her, I just ask, 'I'm sending, hold on.' You are helpless and say to yourself: 'It can't be.' The relationship with Barry was weakening. Messages kept coming in, 'This one was killed, that one was killed.' I hear shots in the background, and then I ask my chief of staff, Noam Gal: 'What's going on at the nature party?' and he replies: 'I don't know.'"
Kingfisher forces at Kibbutz Be'eri and rescue of kibbutz residents // Photo: IDF Spokesperson
In the Reim Forest, which is located within the council boundaries, hundreds of partygoers who were celebrating there in the morning were massacred at the same time.
"I'm one of those who gave the permit for the party," Yarkoni says. "At first it was supposed to be one day, and when they asked for an extension of another day we didn't want to approve, because we don't like this kind of nature parties and thousands of people. But the organizers explained that if we didn't approve, they would lose a lot of money, so I said, 'If the division agrees, I'll agree too.'
"The division approved, and I didn't deal with it anymore. On Sunday morning, the day after the massacre, I drove to the area and was shocked by the terrible sights. There was no junction on the road where the terrorists did not kill and kill. Hamas, these garbage, the murderers, you say, 'One helicopter would have finished them,' after all, they made their way back and forth to the Gaza Strip. One Apache would take them down. I still don't understand where they were."
Where was the Air Force really?
"The entire division and brigade command collapsed. There was no one to call helicopters. You also understand now that each helicopter arrived alone, there was no order. There were no combat helicopters in our area until at least 10:00 or 11:00 in the morning. In my darkest dreams, I never thought of such a scenario. My worst scenario was that one day five terrorists would enter and seize a children's home, nothing more. And suddenly something crazy like this happens to us, and to the IDF I trusted so much, and to the commanders I love. How?"
Chaos: Footage from the Nova party near Kibbutz Reim
Didn't notice any special activity on the other side of the fence?
"Three weeks earlier, I told someone from the army, 'Don't let them go near the fence. Whoever enters between two fences should die.' That was a problem, because they were constantly examining us, and most of those who approached the fence were children aged 12-14, and as a brigade commander you have a problem shooting a child. I said that despite the pain, they had to be eliminated, because otherwise a 25-year-old adult would come, along with others.
On the party: "I'm one of those who gave the permit. It was supposed to be one day. When they asked for an extension, we didn't want to confirm. The organizers explained that they would lose money. I said: 'If the division agrees, I will too.' The division approved, and I didn't deal with it anymore."
"In March 2018, when they tried at the first demonstration to cross the fence between Nirim and Nir Oz, the IDF shot and killed dozens of Arabs in Mecca. The commanding general personally gave the order, and I justified the act. Many died, but if He had let them advance, thousands would have come to us. Aversive shooting. There's nothing you can do, if you give up small, the big blow comes."
So now you have to take off your gloves?
"I'm afraid of God's fear for our soldiers. I don't know much about the army, but I prefer that it also take two months of pounding from the air, more and more depth bombs, and that the soldiers enter the ground only for lack of a choice. Moreover, if there is a building with one or two terrorists, and there are also local residents, let them die. Nothing to do. This is war."
That much?
"I was so annoyed when they talked about the rocket launch that went awry, explaining that it wasn't us who caused the deaths of hundreds. Did we demand the war? They started, and we may also drop a hospital by mistake. That Shabbat, when it all began, I sat in the safe room and saw that they were knocking on the roof in Gaza and asking them to leave the house before the bombing. I said to my wife, 'Oh my God, let them take down the building already.'
"It is important for me to emphasize that we have a tremendous commitment to bring the abductees home. If something happens to the abductees, all the residents of Gaza have to pay, because they all participated in the pogrom, and if they want to live, let them help. It's their responsibility. Let them not say, 'We didn't know, we didn't hear, it's Hamas.' There is no such thing. They made me hate them, and lost the opportunity to live next to us. I don't want revenge, it doesn't interest me, I just want them to do the work so I can go back to living here."
Yarkoni in 2015, when he ran for mayor. "They gave me less and counted me less because I wasn't in the right party, and don't deny it,"
Soldiers in the safe room window
That Shabbat, Kibbutz Nirim was also under murderous attack. The army told Yarkoni that the terrorists who infiltrated the community were specifically looking for his house, but apparently the information they had was out of date, and they arrived at the house he used until about three years ago, where a young couple and a baby were staying, who were not injured.
The terrorists passed through the kibbutz, killed, kidnapped and burned houses, including the homes of two of Yarkoni's three children, who were not in Nirim that day. Only in the evening did the army arrive at his home, soldiers knocked on the safe room window and rescued him and his family.
On the abductees in Gaza: "We have a huge commitment to bring all the abductees home. If something happens to the abductees, all the residents of the Gaza Strip have to pay, because they all participated in the pogrom, and if they want to live, they will help us."
Do you have any new thoughts about the disengagement following what happened?
"The disengagement was the best thing we did, because it gave us justification to defend ourselves and shoot in Gaza if necessary. At the time, I felt conscientious that if I sat inside the Gaza Strip, I was provoking the Arabs. As soon as we left, that was the left's first 'rift,' because the fact is that we're out and they keep shooting. What did they want, for us to leave Nirim and Nir Oz too? The disengagement justified lowering houses if necessary. There were good, quiet days here, and when I said that 99 percent of life is heaven, I meant it. As far as I'm concerned, Qassam rockets or mortar shells are marginal. I couldn't believe these animals could murder us in our homes."
There were even Gazans who worked for you in the fields.
"I heard about three cases, I don't know if that's true, of Gazans who worked for us and spoke on mobile phones with those who came to kill us. I've been told this firsthand. Where does the hatred come from? Today I repent because I thought otherwise, but now I am convinced that as soon as they receive educational materials from the age of zero in which we are described as murderers and the most terrible people in the world, it works. For decades, we may have made the mistake of not giving them hope, and then we were able to stop the crazy wave of hatred. Today it's too late, and they've crossed the border. Now we have to wait several generations for the hostility to pass, and in the meantime we have to make sure that the incitement materials disappear. It all starts with religious hatred. Why should they hate me, what have I done?"
על ההתנתקות: "זה היה הדבר הכי נכון. כשיצאנו זה היה השבר הראשון של השמאל, כי אנחנו בחוץ והם ממשיכים לירות. מה הם רצו, שנעזוב גם את נירים ואת ניר עוז? לא האמנתי שהחיות האלה מסוגלות לרצוח אותנו בבתים שלנו"
תוכלו להמשיך לחיות כאן?
"ראש הממשלה והצבא צריכים לדאוג שנוכל לגור פה בשקט, בשלווה, ושלא אנחנו נהיה מאחורי גדר, אלא הם. צריך לשמור על צביון האזור, לתת איכות חיים וביטחון, ואז אנשים יחזרו. אני אמנם לא איש צבא, אבל אם רוצים שנחיה כאן, צריך לגלח שניים-שלושה ק"מ מעבר לגבול, שיהיה שטח מפורז, ואם מישהו מהם ייכנס אליו - הוא ימות".
יש תושבים במועצה שכבר אמרו שלא יחזרו?
"יש כאלה, ואני לא כועס עליהם. אמרתי להם שאני מחבק אותם, אבל ביקשתי להוסיף 'עוד לא קברנו את מתינו, תנו קצת זמן לחשוב, זה לא בוער, אל תיתנו כעת הצהרות. תירגעו, ורק אז תחליטו'".
מה אשתך אומרת?
"אשתי יודעת שאני לא אעזוב, ובגלל זה היא התחתנה עם האזור".
What about the children?
"My eldest daughter, Shaked, whose house was burned down, recently started building a new house in Nirim, and the greatest joy I had was when I said that the next generation would live 200 meters away from me. I hope she doesn't regret it, she's strong, but to say that the other kids will stay? I don't know. If everyone leaves, I'll leave too, because it's important for me to live near my family, and I'll do everything to keep you staying.
"My mother passed away a year and a half ago, and my father is still alive and he is 91 years old. What happiness they had when their grandchildren and great-grandchildren also chose to stay. A community is first of all the nuclear family, then the kibbutz and at the end of the state. These are important circles. And if the first one cracks, then the others get hurt."
On the Gaza Strip: "I once said: After all, how many people are there in Hamas – 50,2 criminals out of <> million residents? After the bloody Shabbat, I found out that everyone living in Gaza is the same. A mob that came to destroy us. That's it, it's over."
On the day we met, the regional council was almost empty of residents. Most of them were evacuated to hotels on the Dead Sea and Eilat, and while we talked, Yarkoni was constantly preoccupied with logistical problems that needed immediate attention. "Everyone was told to come to the hotel reception with ID cards, and tomorrow morning the Ministry of Tourism will inform them which hotel they are assigned to for the next few days," one of his employees told the mayor.
Yarkoni was furious at the expected rant and asked that Tourism Minister Haim Katz urgently get him. "What's the notice we just gave the hotels?" he is angry. The minister asked him to listen, but Yarkoni refused. "I don't want to," he shouted. "We had a meeting today and they promised not to intervene, why are you intervening?"
The minister understood the pressure and remained calm. "Let me say a sentence, then shout," he requested. "I called the Director General of the Prime Minister's Office to me today and said: 'The envelope has been hit enough, we are for them. Whatever they want, that's how it will be.' Be calm, it won't happen, even if I have to go against the government. I'm here for you."
Yarkoni calmed down. "I told them, 'Give me 50 million shekels so I can release such plotters. And if I steal, you'll put me in jail,'" he said. "Hotels want their money, and rightly so, they are an economic business. In the meantime, I give them from the council's coffers. I have to reassure the residents every day, and I've already told them, 'Until December 31, you can all stay in the hotel.' Although I have no financial commitment from the government, I know that the war will be long, and I want them to know that they have a place to be. Don't think about tomorrow's night. Am I the only one who understands that?"
Will the government find the money?
"My residents won't come near here if they continue to play small with me. Open the taps. If you want to rebuild the envelope, billions have to be poured here. No accounting allowed. After all, they want to distribute the aid to the residents of the council according to the distance of the communities from the fence. How dare they? After all, everyone goes to the same school, everyone heard how their friends were murdered, so they want to tear our hearts out? I asked that the whole council receive the same treatment. Income tax, benefits, psychologists. We are currently in intensive care with CPR."
Already thinking about rehabilitation?
"I'm ashamed to say, but that Shabbat, after they took me out of the safe room and I was left alone, in the early morning I started thinking about how to start rehabilitating. I understood that it was too early to talk to the residents, but as mayor I have to think about what to do the day after tomorrow. It is impossible to shorten processes. We must first bury the dead, bring back the abductees, take care of the soul and build the future, which must be better. If we build the same, people won't come back. This is the test of the state. If the next generation doesn't come, Israel will lose. And if he comes despite the difficulty, we won. A person who comes to live here is allowed to make his life easier. He has enough difficulties anyway."
In the Knesset, wearing jeans and a T-shirt
The next day, at 10:00 A.M., Yarkoni was already in the Knesset, in Jerusalem. Unlike the blazers and suits who roamed the corridors, he is a workman from the Negev, in jeans and a black T-shirt. Does not knock an account to others. At the Finance Committee, in the presence of Economy Minister Nir Barkat, he gave a fiery speech.
"Property taxes - I warn you. Don't go to people and say, 'It was old, this was new,'" he told those in a high pitched tone. "People had their houses burned, their cars. They walked out the door with only underwear and a shirt. Then another billion shekels will be exported, what happened? We will not be able to return to the Gaza Strip if it remains as it was.
"Nir Barkat, I don't need you to come visit us, and I'm not saying this angrily, I'm just saying: Let the IDF win. Do what is necessary, and God forbid our soldiers will not be killed. We give you as much time as you need, so that after that the residents can return and rehabilitate themselves. Give us the conditions, don't abuse us. It's disgusting to talk about money now, but we need oxygen."
Those present applauded when Yarkoni finished his remarks, and Finance Committee Chairman MK Moshe Gafni concluded: "Mr. Council, I am ashamed to say, but when we talk on the phone, I cry. Our hearts are with you, everyone is here, without exception."
Yarkoni this week, in the Knesset Finance Committee. Chairman Gafni told him: "When we talk on the phone, I cry," Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
I asked Yarkoni at the exit if he felt that the kibbutzim were finally being considered, after years in which they were pushed aside and received quite a few derogatory nicknames. "I'll tell you something in great pain," he paused for a moment. "I know they gave me less and counted me less in the past because I wasn't in the right party, and they won't deny it. I can give examples from here to Australia. But right now I don't want to complain, because we have to be one people and understand that they will have to treat us differently from now on. I'm not ready to hear about politics now."
From the Finance Committee, Yarkoni rushed to a discussion in the Health Committee, which focused on the issue of preparedness for providing mental health responses to war victims. The head of the council told those present how the workers had not been day and night since that Black Sabbath, and that they were scattered among the evacuees to care for their shattered souls. "I had a conversation with them two days ago on Zoom, when fifteen minutes earlier they received the news that the body of one of their best friends had been found," he told the packed courtroom. "They fall off their feet and do everything they can to help our people. The soul is the main thing. If we can't heal her, the residents won't come back."
On life in the envelope: "I told the residents, 'It's safe to live here.' For those who were debating whether to live here, I explained that the state had invested billions. I said, 'There's almost no chance they'll penetrate through the ground, but it could be a mortar or a Qassam rocket.' I was wrong."
I asked Yarkoni if he felt he would need treatment when it was all over. "Even after my injury, I didn't use a psychologist. My work is the best medicine," he smiled slightly. "If before the war, for every 100 residents of our country, one needed treatment, today every second person will need it."
There is no one in the Knesset who did not stop, hug Yarkoni and offer help. One said he would arrange an immediate meeting with the prime minister, but Yarkoni, who nodded his head in agreement, had little hope. "We recently had a phone conversation with the prime minister," Yarkoni said when the same activist disappeared, "we waited for him for half an hour - and that's okay, after all a busy person, but after that he gave a speech, listened to three people and finished without even asking what was happening in the cluster.
On the rehabilitation: "My residents won't come near here if they continue to play with me in small ways. Open the taps. If you want to rebuild the envelope, billions have to be poured here. It is forbidden to settle accounts, I asked that the entire council receive the same treatment."
"I was offended for my residents, because it's important for the prime minister to know how they feel these days. I don't need him to love me, he needs to take care of me. I hope that after we return home and win the war, everyone will do some soul-searching. Not because it will help this time, but next time. I'm not one to care about the past, I'm not a historian, I'm only interested in the future. But we have enough families who want to know what happened and want them to take responsibility. I'll tell you what infuriated me."
Please.
"I was in favor of the unity government. And when it was established, at the press conference, Netanyahu, Galant and Gantz said, 'The heroic soldiers, the heroic sailors.' They didn't say a single word about the real heroes - the alert squads and the CSOs. They are the ones who saved the communities, no one else. So aren't they ashamed? I was deeply offended. The State of Israel always follows me, and last Tuesday, do you know what happened here? A van arrived with a hundred weapons, which whoever wants it to take."
Yarkoni used to be a symbol of optimism. When I met him in August 2017, he told me that he believes 1,000 percent that his council areas in the Negev are the safest place to live, and that he can convince anyone that he is right. This week he looked mostly tired, and had trouble smiling. Council elections were due next week, and he intended to run again.
"On Friday, right before everything, I sat down on a plan for the day after the election, because I was sure I would win," he said. "I had an umbrella program that included bringing in 200 new families every year. But that's it, all I want now is to rehabilitate the council so that it stands on its feet and flourishes again, to say thank you and for the next in line to take my place. I'm not going to stay. Inside, I'm just exhausted."
Wrong? We'll fix it! If you find a mistake in the article, please share with us