Month. A whole month has passed since that Black Saturday. 31 days without sleep. 744 hours without air in the lungs. 44,640 minutes in which worry is replaced by hope, which is replaced by worry, and then again.
This month I found myself trying more than once to get into the top echelons of the defense establishment. The evening before the murderous Hamas attack. To the warning signs that arose, and did not crystallize into a general picture. To the decision not to raise alert. To think that they know everything, understand everything, are sure of everything.
Documentation: Nahal Oz's observation room reopened // IDF Spokesperson
I also found myself trying more than once to get into the head of the prime minister and his senior ministers. The conception they lived in, that Hamas is deterred and fears war. To think that suitcases of money and piles of workers would be a substitute for ideology. The belief that it is forbidden to do business with Abu Mazen, but that it is possible to do business with Hamas. To the harmful nonsense that occupied them and tore an entire country apart.
I also tried to get into the heads of the kibbutzniks in the envelope. Those who promised them that the state is strong, the IDF is strong, and the fence is strong. And that if something happens, everyone will come to their rescue. And in real time, when something happened, no one came. Only they were there, with the hand holding the last forces at the safe room door, with the cries of neighbors who were burned to death, and with the friends who disappeared – who to die, who to Gaza, and who can even imagine what those in Gaza are going through.
I also tried to get into the heads of the kibbutzniks in the envelope. The aftermath of the riots in the village of Gaza, photo: Shmuel Buchris
And the soldiers in the outposts, who fought like heroes, few against many. And the fighters who arrived in the first hours, along with the policemen and ISA personnel and volunteers, and found themselves in a huge battlefield, devoid of intelligence but with extraordinary heroism and mental fortitude that saved many from death.
And the celebrants at Nova, the nature party that became the party of the massacre. What a contrast between joy and the killing field. And alongside them are the heroes of the rescue organizations, who turned worlds upside down to pay their last respects. And the identification and burial teams, and the escorts of the families and abductees, and the tens of thousands of evacuees from their homes – those who will return to them at some point when the war is over, and those who will not because they have no home.
There isn't an Israeli who wouldn't do everything to go back exactly a month, to the cursed morning of October 7. Prevent disaster. Save war and maybe wars. To spare the sense of humiliation, helplessness, the understanding that even 75 years after the establishment of the state, we still do not live here for sure. The knowledge that anti-Semitism is there, and anti-Israelism is there, and that around us live bloodthirsty savages who, if given the chance, will do what their ancestors did: murder and rape, loot and burn.
Families of the abductees demonstrate near the Knesset // Photo: Yoni Rikner
This nightmare has been the story of our lives here since Simchat Torah. He revealed good things to us: about heroism and courage, about Zionism and choosing life, as well as about social solidarity and rare and moving civic strength. He also revealed bad things to us: about small, miserable politics, about elected officials who don't deserve their jobs and us, and about entire spaces in the public sector that don't function.
That Saturday was the day of our disaster, but from it our future can also grow. The choice is ours. All we have to do is look into the eyes of the families of the abductees and fallen, in uniform and at civilians, and to all those who paid the terrible price of what happened here. To look, and understand that if we don't change and change, tomorrow we will be them.
Wrong? We'll fix it! If you find a mistake in the article, please share with us