I’ve been to the Gaza envelope three times since October 7th. It’s never easy, and it’s never fun. It is always meaningful. This visit was slightly different in terms of what we saw and heard, which made it more meaningful in a different way.

I’ve heard the stories of Sderot and the police station attack many times. I’ve been to that police station many times and have powerful memories of it. It no longer exists after October 7th. Instead, there is a beautiful and powerful memorial designed by the daughter of my friend Ovid. I had seen pictures of it that he shared, but this was the first time I got to see it in person. I’ve been to Sderot many times and have always been struck by the fact that the playground equipment is also a bomb shelter for the children. The movie theaters are bomb shelters because otherwise, who would go to the movies? When an alert goes out, you have 15 seconds to get to a shelter, which often means you fall to the ground and cover your head instead.

We walked to the police station memorial and got the description of what happened and how the IDF was able to eventually free to station from the terrorists. We walked the memorial and read the names of those murdered and the quotes written on the memorial. It was powerful to be there, see the memorial, feel the loss and the resilience, and understand that the people of Sderot and the people of Israel are not going anywhere. There is resilience. As Golda Meir said to then Senator Biden, “We Israelis have a secret weapon. We have nowhere else to go.”

We climbed the Kobi Overlook, where we could look out into Gaza. The city of Beit Hanoun was clearly visible, about a kilometer away. I’ve been to a number of kibbutzim and cities on the border, and while I know it’s right on the Gazan border, after October 7th, it’s a bit shocking. At the overlook, my friend Yaron, who is a Lt. Colonel (res) and was the operational commander of the Gazan unit throughout the war, spoke to us. Yaron is both an amazing, sweet guy and a badass. He has told me a number of gut-wrenching stories. He fought terrorists before October 7th, on October 7th, and after October 7th. He started by focusing on how October 7th happened.

Yaron shared his personal October 7th story. What he did and what he saw. The fighting he engaged with. The lives he saved and the times somebody else saved his life. As he told his October 7th experience and the timeline, I felt as if I was with him. Fighting to get the terrorists out of his base. Leaving in the middle of fighting to the backup base so he could be in charge of coordination. Having no computers working and writing on windows. Filling up the windows with places to deploy the IDF. Leaving the backup base because he needed the resources of the main base once it was freed from the terrorists. Seeing the bodies on the road as he drove to and from the base.

Yaron is one of few the IDF leaders I have heard who has directly and honestly admitted that they blew it. They had the intelligence. He shared how they actually got the intelligence (more amazing Israeli stuff that I can’t share). They simply made some terrible assumptions that led to October 7th happening. The first was that they assumed Hamas would think like they do. More money, more resources, and they would be happy to keep the status quo. That wasn’t the truth. Hamas doesn’t think like us. It is a reminder to the world that when you are dealing with terrorists like Hamas, assuming that they want the same things you do can be a fatal mistake. October 7th was the ultimate proof of that. He didn’t make excuses or blame anybody else. He stated it very simply: “It was our mistake.”

They also assumed their technological advantages would also be enough. Obviously, it was not. It is why there are so many IDF soldiers now on the border with Gaza, Syria, and Lebanon. Technology is an amazing thing, but it is not enough. As Yaron said, we needed boots on the ground, and we didn’t have them.

The third mistake they made was thinking the fences were strong enough. When you go to the border, you realize the fence is no more than a chain-link fence you might have in your backyard, just a little higher. They are easy to drive right through, especially if there aren’t boots on the ground. They now realize they must always have plenty of soldiers guarding the borders at all times.

I could have listened to Yaron for hours. His analysis of the status before October 7th, what happened on October 7th, and everything that happened after October 7th was captivating. Hearing his views on what the endgame needs to be was challenging. I don’t know if Israel will be able to achieve it. I don’t know whether the world will allow it to happen. I don’t know if Israel will care what the world says, threatens, or does. It has been clear throughout the trip that Israel will do whatever it needs to do to keep Israeli citizens safe and the country secure.

We left Yaron and headed to a tunnel that was built by Hamas into Israel. This was an old tunnel that was discovered and made inoperable well before October 7th. It was deep beneath the earth, and we had to go way down to access it. It wasn’t wide and had a musty, moldy smell the deeper you got. I couldn’t imagine living in something this small like the hostages did. At the bottom, the tunnel itself was tight. The soldier who was showing it to us was about 5’7″ and said he had to duck many times because it was too short for him. I went through the mock tunnel in Hostage Square and felt confined. I remember hearing the story of a hostage who went through that same mock tunnel and said, “I only wish it was this big.” I get it now—no light, minimal room, and an inability to stand up straight. The musty smell and lack of fresh air are something I won’t forget. We were told not to share pictures on social media, so I am not including any in this blog.

From the tunnel we went to visit the site of the Nova festival massacre and pay our respects and bear witness. This is my fourth time there and I didn’t need the tour or the explanation of what happened where. I followed our group well behind so I could just ‘be’ there and take everything in. I looked at the trees where women were tied up, raped, murdered, and left hanging there, tied to the trees. It gets more visual when I think of the story I have heard from Rami Davidian and how he cut them down, closed their legs, covered them up, said Shema over their dead bodies, and gave them the respect that Hamas had ripped from them. I looked at the images of the people attending the festival who were murdered and read their stories. Doing my best to bring their memory to life as somebody read and learned about who they were. The time flew by and it reminded me of my second visit to Nova when I found chairs at certain memorial images and sat with the image as if I was sitting shiva for them or paying respect at their graves. While the Nova site has been built up incredibly, those chairs are one of the things that I miss the most. It’s hard to sit ‘with’ somebody and pay attention to their memory the way it’s set up now. Every time I go to Nova or one of the kibbutzim, it’s incredibly hard. It’s like going to Auschwitz not very long after liberation. A friend of mine who has been to both made that exact observation as we left the Nova site.

Our next stop was Moshav Tkuma to visit one of the Israeli Defense and Security Forum key staff who lives there. She and her husband prepared an amazing lunch for us. She had so much food that when she told us there was a main course, we thought we had already eaten it! Steak, chicken, and meat from the grill were the final courses. After lunch, she shared what it was like raising a family in the Gaza envelope, the challenges of the rocket attacks for years, and community life there before and after October 7th. She recounted how lucky they were that the gates were locked just before the terrorists showed up and how the terrorists chose to move on instead of trying to break into the moshav. The commitment to live there before October 7th and then to stay after October 7th was amazing to see. Her land was beautiful; she has 1,500 lemon trees that they grow and harvest. It was truly a slice of heaven, just one that is far too close to the evil of Hamas in Gaza. I have been to kibbutzim along the Gaza border after October 7th, and this was the first place where I felt I understood why people would move there before October 7th and why they’d stay after October 7th.

We left her home and headed to the Tkuma Vehicle Graveyard from October 7th. This is where the hundreds of incinerated cars from Route 232 and the surrounding kibbutzim were taken. There were stacks and stacks of burned cards. Cars and trucks with bullet holes in them. Smashed front ends, destroyed sides, and destroyed vehicles. It was easy to feel the terror the civilians must have felt in their cars on October 7th as the bullets were hitting their cars, when the terrorists crashed into their cars, ripped their doors open, or lit the car on fire. In many ways it was worse than the shoes in the Holocaust museum. Certainly a modern day representation of them. There were cars that we asked our guide about and, he didn’t know the story. So many cars and vehicles. I’m sharing a lot of pictures and a video, and they still don’t do it justice. There is so much evil from Hamas that the world hasn’t seen, refuses to see, and simply doesn’t want to see.

We left the vehicle graveyard in silence. Between Nova and seeing what Hamas did to murder people in their personal vehicles made it a tough day. As we talked on the bus home, there was no concern for the destruction in Gaza. Whatever it takes to destroy Hamas is what it takes. I understand where the soldiers who saw what they saw and had to fight Hamas are coming from. Each time I am here and see the depravity of Hamas it goes a little deeper. What they have done to the Gazan people in terms of indoctrination, murder, and using them as human shields is unforgivable. What they have done to Israelis and anybody else they encountered on October 7th is unforgivable. How they have damaged the Jewish people around the world is unforgivable. How they have harmed the future of the Palestinian people in the West Bank is unforgivable. The world doesn’t want to see it. The Jew hatred is so great they would prefer to hold Jews accountable than Hamas. They’d rather ignore what the Gazan people deal with because of Hamas before and after October 7th. They’d rather ignore the impact Hamas and October 7th has had on the future of a Palestinian state and the ability for people like Smotrich and Ben Gvir to push their agenda and even make it seem appealing to many people who would have found it abhorrent on October 6th.

It is often hard to keep my humanity when confronted with what happened on October 7th and the depravity of Hamas. It’s easy to sink into anger and vengence. It’s easy to want to blame everybody in Gaza. It’s also not who I want to be. It doesn’t align with my values. I often think back to my first visit to Kfar Aza in May 2024 when the drones were bombing Jabalya and seeing the drone and watching and hearing the explosion was the only thing that gave me peace that day. At that moment I was a person I don’t want to be. In a time with rampant Jew hatred, the realities of October 7th and everything that happened the last three years to people I know and who are friends of mine, seeing the impact of October 7th on my friends’ children, it is both harder and more important to remain true to my values and who I am. It isn’t easy. It isn’t simple. It is also important. I’m not giving up or giving in. I’m also not forgetting or minimizing what happened and am not willing to excuse one bit of it or those who support it then or now. Accountability, not hate, is the key for me. What is it for you?