{"id":110241,"date":"2024-02-09T18:05:18","date_gmt":"2024-02-09T16:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=110241"},"modified":"2024-02-05T14:51:58","modified_gmt":"2024-02-05T12:51:58","slug":"28-05-91","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=110241","title":{"rendered":"Oct. 7 Was Worse Than a Terror Attack. It Was a Pogrom."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Oct. 7 Was Worse Than a Terror Attack. It Was a Pogrom.<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n

DEBORAH DANAN<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2018Let me know of one Palestinian in Gaza who tried to save a Jew and maybe I\u2019ll change my mind\u2019<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n

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\nPalestinians cross the Gaza-Israel border fence in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Oct. 7, 2023 \/ \u00a9 YUSEF MOHAMMED\/IMAGESLIVE VIA ZUMA PRESS WIRE<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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Eyal Barad was in the safe room of his home in Nir Oz for more than 12 hours on Oct. 7 while Palestinians went on a rampage of his Gaza envelope kibbutz, eventually kidnapping or murdering more than a quarter of its residents.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Every so often, Barad, 40, was forced to cover his 6-year-old daughter\u2019s mouth with his hand to stifle her squeals. The little girl, who is autistic, thought the whole thing was a game. Most of the time, though, Barad was glued to his phone, watching the live feed of a camera he had recently installed outside his home to monitor speeding cars. Images from the feed, which I obtained, show Palestinian women and children\u2014some appearing as young as 8 years old\u2014taking part in the horror of that day.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Survivors\u2019 accounts, video evidence, and the interrogation recordings of apprehended Palestinians paint a damning picture of the complicity of Gazan civilians both in the Oct. 7 attack, in which more than 1,200 people were murdered and 240 people were abducted to Gaza, and its aftermath. It is one that has sparked a debate in Israel that challenges the inclination to draw distinctions between ordinary Palestinian civilians of Gaza\u2014often referred to in Israel as bilti me<\/em>\u2019uravim <\/em>(uninvolved)\u2014and their terror leaders. For many, Oct. 7 reeked of something that Jews have been familiar with for centuries; a phenomenon where not just a vanguard, but a society at large participates in the ritual slaughter of Jews.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Around 700 Palestinians stormed Barad\u2019s kibbutz of Nir Oz\u2014less than a five-minute drive from Gaza\u2014that day, CCTV footage shows. The overwhelming majority of those, estimated by Eran Smilansky, a member of the kibbutz\u2019s security squad, to be around 550, were civilians. They were largely unarmed and not in uniform. Some of those civilians carried out wholesale acts of terror<\/a> themselves, including rape<\/a> and abduction\u2014and in some cases, the eventual sale<\/a> of hostages to Hamas\u2014while others abetted the terrorists. Others still simply took advantage of the porous border to loot Israeli homes and farms, including stealing<\/a> hundreds of thousands of shekels in agricultural equipment.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2018The reality proves that there\u2019s no such thing as a bilti me\u2019urav (uninvolved) in Gaza. All of Gaza is Hamas.\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Similar scenes played out in several of the more than 20 brutalized Israeli communities. In one video<\/a> that has become emblematic of the debate around the \u201cuninvolved,\u201d an elderly Palestinian man with walking sticks is seen hobbling at an impressive clip along with the rest of the mob through the breached gate of Be\u2019eri.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Differentiating between terrorists and civilians is tricky, particularly since Hamas terrorists often wear civilian clothing, a tactic evident<\/a> in the ongoing war in Gaza. However, other indicators help make this distinction, such as the absence of weapons and the fact that many were filmed crossing the border barefoot or even on horseback. Even senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk readily admitted<\/a> that Gaza civilians had taken part in the Oct. 7 atrocities.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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One video shows a group of men in civilian clothing beating a soldier<\/a> while a separate image shows another group of what appears to be civilian men celebrating<\/a> atop the smoking husk of a burned-out tank. In the infamous 47-minute terror reel of the Oct. 7 atrocities, Palestinians in civilian clothing are seen beating elderly hostages with sticks. Another repeatedly screams \u201cAllahu akbar!\u201d as he decapitates a Thai farm worker with a garden tool.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Barad\u2019s speed camera in Nir Oz includes images of a Palestinian girl riding a stolen bike. In another, a Palestinian woman is seen pointing out Barad\u2019s neighbor\u2019s home to a uniformed terrorist. An image captured later shows a resident of that home being hoisted onto a motorcycle to be taken into Gaza.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But it\u2019s the testimonies of the survivors that provide the clearest evidence that Oct. 7 was not just a terrorist attack, but a pogrom.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Batya Holin is a photographer and peace activist from Kfar Aza, which alongside Nir Oz and Be\u2019eri, was one of the heaviest-hit communities. Holin had developed a friendship with a Gazan photographer, Mahmoud, with whom she arranged a joint exhibit last year of photos of her kibbutz and his village in the Gaza Strip. On the morning of Oct. 7, Mahmoud called and interrogated Holin, asking her how many soldiers were in her vicinity. That was when Holin realized that Mahmoud had given the photos of her village to Hamas. \u201cWhoever says there are people there who are uninvolved, here is the proof,\u201d she told<\/a> Israel\u2019s Channel 13 News. \u201cThey are all involved. They are all Hamas.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Echoing Holin\u2019s testimony, former hostage Nili Margalit said that \u201ccivilians, regular people,<\/a>\u201d abducted her to Gaza in one of the kibbutz\u2019s golf carts. Likewise, an NBC News investigation<\/a> found that Noa Argamani was likely kidnapped by a civilian mob. A video of her abduction shows her unarmed captors wearing regular clothes. Argamani may have been later handed over<\/a> or sold to Hamas.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Natali Yohanan, 38, recounted hearing a Palestinian woman enter her home with two men. The woman stayed there for several hours, intermittently cooking for her male companions, watching Netflix, and ransacking her clothes. The men would occasionally try to break open the safe room door, where Yohanan, her husband, and two young children, were hiding.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cShe started singing and asked them, are you hungry? Are you thirsty? She went into my fridge and heated up food,\u201d Yohanan said. \u201cShe was very relaxed and seemed happy. She stole my credit card, my passport, and my clothes\u2014even some of my underwear\u2014but the clothes she didn\u2019t want she folded and put on the bed. It was so strange.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Then there are the Gazans who worked at the kibbutzim. Yohanan\u2019s husband, a farmer, is one of many people in the Gaza periphery communities who hired Palestinian workers from Gaza. Like many others I spoke to, Yohanan believed that the terrorists were acting on inside knowledge obtained by those Gazan workers. Israel had gradually raised the number of work permits in the months leading up to Oct. 7 with an estimated 18,500 Gazans working in Israel before the onslaught. The thinking behind the policy was that economic incentives to the residents of the Strip would sustain the fragile peace. Hanan Dann, from Kfar Aza, told me that he was \u201cglad that workers from Gaza were coming to Israel to have jobs and meet Israelis, to see that we\u2019re not all devils.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In several of the devastated communities, detailed maps<\/a> were found on the bodies of dead terrorists, maps that residents say could have only been drawn up by people with intimate knowledge of the area. Gazan workers relayed an extensive range of information to Hamas that enabled the terror group to plan its attack with extraordinary meticulousness, including the identities and residences of security heads, the locations of electric boards and communications systems and how to disable them.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The workers\u2019 betrayal left an indelible mark on the surviving kibbutzniks, leading many to reexamine previously held beliefs about their Palestinian neighbors. Nir Oz, like many of the other ravaged kibbutzim in the area, was home to scores of peace activists, many of whom volunteered for a program known as Road to Recovery, driving sick Gazans to Israeli hospitals for treatment. Many now believe that while there are Gazans who want to live in peace, they do not represent the majority; or, as one survivor summed it up<\/a> to AFP, \u201cthere are more who don\u2019t want us alive.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Irit Lahav, whose parents were from Nir Oz\u2019s founding members, described the community as a \u201cpeace lovers\u2019\u201d kibbutz. \u201cIt broke my heart. How can we ever get over this sense of betrayal?\u201d Lahav, who shuttled Palestinian cancer patients several hours from the border with Gaza to their treatments in central Israel, told me. \u201cThe Palestinian public simply hates us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Not everyone, however, was surprised by the involvement of Gazan civilians. \u201cI don\u2019t differentiate between them and Hamas,\u201d Nir Shani told me. \u201cLet me know of one Palestinian in Gaza who tried to save a Jew and maybe I\u2019ll change my mind.\u201d Shani\u2019s teenaged son Amit was taken hostage and later released as part of a prisoner exchange at the end of November. Shani is from Be\u2019eri, also home to lifelong peace activists, including Vivian Silver, the founder of Women Wage Peace, and Yocheved and Oded Lifshitz. Silver was murdered and the Lifshitzes were taken hostage. Yocheved was later released but Oded remains in Gaza. \u201cThey are people of peace who were always supporting Palestine,\u201d the couple\u2019s grandson Daniel said of them. He recounted how bystanders in Gaza spat on his grandmother, who was thrown over the back of a motorcycle after being pummeled in the ribs by her captors.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In one viral video<\/a>, the near-naked and bloodied body of Shani Louk, an Israeli German who was abducted from the Nova music festival but who was later declared dead, is seen being paraded through the streets of Gaza in the back of a pickup truck. Hordes of Palestinian civilians are cheering, spitting and slapping Louk\u2019s deformed figure while chanting \u201cAllahu akbar.\u201d The last tranche of hostages to be released in November\u2019s truce saw crowds of Palestinians line the streets<\/a>, jeering as the Red Cross ambulances passed by. The aunt of released hostage Eitan Yahalomi said<\/a> that after the arrival of her 12-year-old nephew into Gaza, \u201call the civilians, everyone, beat him.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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IDF Sgt. Adir Tahar was murdered and decapitated during the invasion while manning a post near the Erez border crossing. His father, David, was forced to bury his son\u2019s body without his head. An interrogation of two Palestinians by Israel\u2019s Shin Bet security agency revealed<\/a> that the remains of the head\u2014which had been mutilated until it barely resembled a human skull\u2014were kept in the freezer of an ice cream store in Gaza. One of the men had tried to sell the head for $10,000. The man in question was a Palestinian civilian and not a Hamas operative, Tahar told me. The Shin Bet did not respond to a request for confirmation in time for publication.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe reality proves that there\u2019s no such thing as a bilti me\u2019urav<\/em> (uninvolved) in Gaza,\u201d Tahar said. \u201cAll of Gaza is Hamas.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In several cases, Palestinian families held hostages in their homes. Released hostage Mia Schem said she was being held by a family in Gaza<\/a>. \u201cEntire families are in the service of Hamas,\u201d she told Channel 13. Avigail Idan, the 4-year-old Israeli American whose parents were murdered, was also held in the homes<\/a> of several Palestinian families. When former hostage Russian Israeli Roni Krivoi remarkably managed to escape his captors during an Israeli air raid, he hid alone for several days before being discovered by Gaza civilians<\/a>, he said, who returned him to Hamas.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThere are no innocent civilians. Not one. They don\u2019t exist,\u201d Schem said. \u201cAll of them there are terrorists.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Another hostage, 17-year-old Agam Goldstein-Almog, agreed with Schem. She said<\/a> that she was brought to a school and \u201ca nice lady offered us water, a mattress, and a place to sleep\u201d and assured her the place was safe. \u201cI turned to my mother and said, \u2018Mom, there are good people in the world. And five minutes later they fired a barrage of rockets from the school [into Israel] and everyone was shouting, \u2018Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar,\u2019 and I told her, \u2018Scratch that, they\u2019re all the same.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIf we previously believed that there was a chance for peace, we\u2019ve lost all faith in these people, especially after we were there and among the population,\u201d Goldstein-Almog added.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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There have been scores of examples of Gazan civilians in various professions who appear to be, at the very least, in the \u201cservice of Hamas.\u201d From New York Times, <\/em>Associated Press, and Reuters photojournalists breaking the Oct. 7 breach<\/a> into Israel (with one spotted brandishing a grenade), to UNRWA staffers who have praised the attacks<\/a>, kept hostages in their homes<\/a> (a claim the U.N. agency strongly denies), and covered up the existence of tunnel shafts and weapons caches in their schools<\/a>. One teacher<\/a> at an UNRWA school in Khan Yunis, Jawad Abu Shamala, was a member<\/a> of Hamas\u2019 leadership in charge of its funds.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, Ahmad al-Kahlout, confessed<\/a> to Israeli security forces in December that his hospital doubled as a military facility for Hamas. He admitted to being recruited to the terror group and receiving military training, and added that there were other \u201cdoctors, nurses, paramedics, and clerks\u201d who were also military operatives in Hamas\u2019 Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. His last remarks in the video, released by the IDF, may suggest that he did not have a choice. Calling Hamas leaders \u201ccowards,\u201d al-Kahlout said, \u201cthey ruined us.\u201d Similar claims can be found in several videos<\/a> by ordinary Gazans, some of whom were silenced<\/a> mid-sentence. One clip cited<\/a> by The<\/em> Wall Street Journal<\/em> prompted Hamas to issue a warning against publishing any materials it deems \u201coffensive to the image of the steadfastness and unity of our people in Gaza.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Then again, a survey<\/a> conducted in December by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that while about one in five Gazans polled blamed Hamas for their suffering in the war, 57% of Palestinians in Gaza (and 82% in the West Bank) continued to support Hamas\u2019 decision to attack Israel. Moreover, support for the terror group overall (42%) has increased since Oct. 7.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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While many Palestinians have occasionally expressed dissatisfaction with aspects of Hamas\u2019 governance, such as electricity shortages or tax hikes, its actions as a \u201cresistance\u201d faction are viewed favorably. Take, for example, the words of a banker from Gaza City cited in the WSJ<\/em> report: \u201cI hate Hamas, the government. I never respected them. But the militants? I believe in them so much, they are sacrificing their souls for the sake of Palestine.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Seasonal expressions of discontent are not a new phenomenon. There have been protests against the group in 2017, 2019, and as recently as last summer. Benny Avital, a member of Nir Oz\u2019s civilian security team, told me that prior to Oct. 7, the protests in Gaza had fueled hopes that \u201cthe Gazan people will rise up against\u201d their leaders.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Several notable Israelis have expressed similar sentiments. Singer-songwriter Idan Raichel, who in the past has described his music as a bridge for peace<\/a> with Israel\u2019s Arab neighbors, said<\/a> last week that Gaza civilians should do more to \u201crise up against Hamas,\u201d and the fact that they don\u2019t means that \u201cmost of them should be treated as involved.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Even Israel\u2019s President Isaac Herzog, who\u2019s more dovish than the right-wing government, has pointed the finger at Palestinian civilians in Gaza. \u201cIt is an entire nation out there that is responsible,\u201d Herzog said<\/a> almost two weeks after the attacks. \u201cIt is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It\u2019s absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d\u2019etat.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For Avital and other Israelis, there is no longer any middle ground after Oct. 7.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cFor us now, there is bad and good. Before we were sure there was something in the middle. Now we understand there is nothing in the middle. There are people who want to kill you and there are us, who just want to live a quiet life.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Deborah Danan<\/strong> is a journalist and communications consultant based in Jaffa, Israel. Her work as an investigative reporter has taken her across the Middle East, from Gaza to Jerusalem to Cairo to Amman.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Oct. 7 Was Worse Than a Terror Attack. It Was a Pogrom. DEBORAH DANAN \u2018Let me know of one Palestinian in Gaza who tried to save a Jew and maybe I\u2019ll change my mind\u2019 . Palestinians cross the Gaza-Israel border fence in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Oct. 7, 2023 \/ \u00a9 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110241"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=110241"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110293,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110241\/revisions\/110293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=110241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=110241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=110241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}