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I Witnessed the Aftermath of Hamas’ Carnage; We Can Never Forget It
The bodies of people, some of them elderly, lie on a street after they were killed during a mass-infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip, in Sderot, southern Israel, Oct. 7, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
I have just spent the past few days in Israel. This was not my first visit since October 7, and Israel has been uppermost in my thoughts throughout that time — but this week’s visit was without doubt a life-changing experience.
Together with colleagues from the Jewish Federation’s LA Board of Rabbis, I traversed Israel, and saw and heard things that I will never be able to unsee or unhear. And to be clear: I do not wish to unsee or unhear them. But the emotional impact they made will remain with me for the rest of my life.
On Tuesday morning, we visited Kfar Aza. Until October 7, Kfar Aza was an idyllic kibbutz on the northernmost part of the eastern border between the Gaza Strip and Israel. Now, it is a haunting reminder of the carnage of that cruel day.
Founded in 1951, and home to some 900 peace-loving, idealistic kibbutzniks, Kfar Aza was known as a pioneer kibbutz in computerized irrigation, and as an eager promoter of peace projects. Every year over the past few years, members of the kibbutz would gather on open ground near the Gaza border — just half a mile away from the kibbutz boundary — and fly kites adorned with messages promoting peace and freedom that were directed towards their Palestinian neighbors.
The annual tradition, known as Kites for Hope, was spearheaded as a response to the 2018 wave of terror in the form of explosives attached to kites sent into Israel from Gaza. Kites for Hope’s creator was Aviv Kutz, a Kfar Aza resident, who had also spent time in the United States.
This year, Kites for Hope was scheduled to take place on October 7. It didn’t happen. The 350 Hamas terrorists who swarmed the kibbutz early that morning, continuing their assault throughout the day, butchering and burning 68 residents and kidnapping 18 others, made sure of that.
Heartbreakingly, Aviv, along with his wife Livnat and their three children Yonatan, Yiftach, and Rotem, were murdered in their home, where they were discovered days later. Just a few feet away from Aviv’s brutalized body, in the living room of their modest house, lay the peace kite he and his family had intended to fly later that day.
Standing just yards away from their home, we heard about Aviv and his family from their friend Maya. We also heard from Zion, who heads the Shaar Hanegev Regional Council citizen security force. He told us about his friend Ofir Libstein, the indefatigable mayor of Shaar Hanegev. That fateful morning, Ofir had attempted to protect his beloved Kfar Aza with a pistol he kept at his home, but he was soon mowed down in cold blood by a Hamas murderer on the road beside his house.
A bullet hole from one of the bullets that killed him is still visible on the gatepost leading into his front yard, as are bloodstains. Nitzan, Ofir’s 19-year-old son, was also a victim of the Kfar Aza massacre that day. Initially considered missing, his body was discovered 12 days later close to the Gaza border.
Zion, an impassive man with the kind of bearing and presence one expects of a security operative, suddenly and unexpectedly broke down and cried, as he described discovering his friend Ofir’s body lying on the road on October 8. He was certain that Ofir was deliberately targeted as part of the Hamas strategy to eliminate local leadership, in order to paralyze and confuse the whole area for as long as possible.
Suddenly, as Zion was speaking, a deafening explosion boomed from somewhere uncomfortably close to where we were standing. We all jumped, and our lives flashed in front of our eyes. We knew that there was a truce, but we also knew that the deal between Hamas and Israel was very precarious.
Zion reassured us that it was a controlled explosion, but later in the day we discovered that Hamas had breached the ceasefire, albeit briefly, claiming IDF provocation. In that moment we suddenly realized what it meant to live in Kfar Aza before October 7, and, indeed, anywhere in proximity to rockets originating in Gaza. There is no way that Israel can continue to accept this threat to the lives of its citizens.
On Tuesday afternoon, we visited Camp Shura, the army base where hundreds of bodies were brought to be identified by the IDF rabbinate unit that specializes in this grisly work. The relatively new facility is the largest of its kind anywhere in the world outside the United States, able to cope with almost 300 bodies at any one time.
But, as the rabbis grimly informed us, on October 7 and the days that followed, they were utterly overwhelmed, soon running out of gurneys on which to put the bodies. Instead of using gurneys, they had to put human remains on the floor, side by side. Even this wasn’t enough, and they soon ran out of space on the floor. Some of the bodies had been so brutalized by the Hamas terrorists, that it wasn’t possible to identify them, even by the most modern scientific methods.
That evening, we heard from Moshe Shapira, father of Aner, whose heroism and bravery saved the lives of 10 fellow partygoers at the ill-fated Nova rave. Aner, a natural leader, took charge of a group of 29 hiding in a concrete bomb shelter near the site of the party, and calmed them all down. Each time terrorists tossed in grenades from the outside, he tossed them back out, until one exploded in his hand, killing him instantly. The remaining survivors in the shelter hid among the dead. Some, such as Hersh Polin Goldberg, were taken by the terrorists into Gaza, where they remain, their fate unknown.
Moshe Shapira’s composure was striking. He held up a poster-sized image of Aner — the last photo of his son, taken on a phone about 15 minutes before he died. You can see Aner from behind, his silhouette framed by an orange glow, as everyone else around him crouches as close to the ground as they can. Aner’s strength and courage are eerily evident in that extraordinary photo; tragically, minutes later his body would be mutilated and shattered by the Hamas grenade.
On Wednesday we met with survivors of two of the villages that came under terrorist attack on October 7: Netiv Ha’asara and Zikim. They are now living in a hotel on a picturesque mountaintop not far from Jerusalem, but despite the great care, the situation is far from ideal. Traumatized parents are unable to take care of their children, most of whom are totally disoriented by their harrowing experiences on October 7 — some of them lost close friends and relatives, others are just unable to decompress.
Of the survivors who spoke to us, Scottish-born Moira made the deepest impression. She has not had an easy life. After moving to Israel in the 1970s to get married, she and her family were forced to move from the original Netiv Ha’asara village in Sinai, which was disbanded as part of the Camp David peace accord arrangements between Egypt and Israel.
The new Netiv Ha’asara was built in an area that abuts the Erez border crossing on the north Gaza border. Initially, relations between residents and Gaza Arabs were positive, and workers from Gaza built all the homes in the village. But things deteriorated, particularly after Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005, and the Hamas takeover of the enclave in 2006.
Rocket attacks began and became ever more frequent; one Hamas projectile even landed on the roof of Moira’s house. She and her husband rebuilt their home and remained resilient, determined to stay, even after three people in the village were killed by rockets — in 2005, 2007, and 2010.
The thought that Netiv Ha’asara could ever be overrun by terrorists was not even a consideration — but on October 7 it happened. Moira told us that 21 residents of Netiv Ha’asara were killed, ranging in age from 17 to 80 years old. Two of the victims were American citizens. After the IDF eventually arrived and neutralized the terrorists, all the surviving village residents were evacuated to two hotels — and eight weeks later, that is where they remain, in this temporary and unsettling setting.
Moira is a hardy woman — chirpy by disposition and determined by nature. She told us that all she wants now is to move back home, with the assurance that the security risks associated with living in Netiv Ha’asara have been mitigated once and for all. Despite everything she has been through, and despite the gruesome murder of her neighbors and friends, Moira’s home of over 40 years is where she wants to be — the sooner the better.
Listening to Moira was to hear a microcosm of everything that Israel now faces: the painful trauma of October 7, combined with the bewildering instability of the present, and the ever-hovering uncertainty about the future. We muttered what we hoped were helpful words, but we knew, even as we said them, that the road ahead is charged with incredible challenges and painful difficulties — for Moira, and for everyone else.
We also stopped by at the Shamir Medical Center on the outskirts of Rishon LeTsion. We heard how the hospital quickly shifted into red alert on October 7, transferring as many patients as they could to the safety of underground areas in the face of relentless rocket attacks. Soon, the wounded began to arrive in droves — all victims of the savage Hamas attacks.
Hundreds were admitted, and, somehow, they managed to save every life — a truly remarkable achievement. Over the past few days, the hospital has been treating hostages released by Hamas as part of the deal associated with the pause in the Gaza campaign. Many of them were Thai workers, whom — despite their horrific experiences — have expressed their desire to stay in Israel.
Although the journey is far from over, the profound impact of our visit to Israel resonates deeply, evoking a sense of both urgency and unity. My experience in Israel this week was punctuated by tragedy and resilience, underscoring the crucial work that lies ahead. Critically, the crisis we have witnessed cannot be allowed to fade into the backdrop of our consciousness; instead, it demands our sustained attention and diligent action.
The unity and commitment displayed by all the members of the clergy mission, despite our differing backgrounds and congregations, was nothing short of inspirational. Our collective resolve has been strengthened, not only to support Israel and its people through these trying times, but also to continue our collaborative efforts back in the United States.
This week, we committed ourselves to a shared mission, and galvanized ourselves to turn our upsetting encounters in Israel into action, so that unrelenting hope and optimism can be transformed into an enduring reality. Am Yisrael Chai!
The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.
The post I Witnessed the Aftermath of Hamas’ Carnage; We Can Never Forget It first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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South African Jews Slam President for Failing to Condemn Hamas Murder of Bibas Children
Israelis sit together as they light candles and hold posters with the images Oded Lifschitz, Shiri Bibas and her two children, Kfir and Ariel Bibas, seized during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, on the day the bodies of deceased hostages, identified at the time by Palestinian terror groups as Lifschitz, Shiri Bibas, and her two children, were handed over under the terms of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Itay Cohen
South Africa’s Jewish community has called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to condemn the murder of Israeli children Ariel and Kfir Bibas, their mother, and another elderly hostage kidnapped by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists, lambasting his silence during a recent address to a major international gathering on the same day that the hostages’ bodies were paraded in Gaza.
In a statement shared with The Algemeiner on Monday, the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) — the umbrella group of the country’s Jewish community — slammed Ramaphosa for failing to condemn Hamas’s brutality or even acknowledge the hostage victims in his speech last week to senior diplomats from leading rich and developing countries.
During his remarks at the Group of 20 (G20) foreign ministers’ meeting in Johannesburg, Ramaphosa “only mentioned the suffering of the Palestinians” without noting the Israeli hostages who were killed while in captivity in Gaza, according to SAJBD.
“South Africa welcomes the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas as a crucial first step toward ending the severe humanitarian crisis faced by Palestinians in Gaza,” Ramaphosa said at the gathering.
In response, SAJBD’s president, Zev Krengel, and national chairperson, Prof. Karen Milner, penned an open letter to Ramaphosa in which they denounced his remarks as “reprehensible,” criticizing the South African leader for his failure to call out Hamas for its atrocities and questioning his government’s credibility to lead international forums such as the G20.
“On the same day that these comments were made, Hamas paraded four coffins of Israeli civilian hostages in a macabre ceremony that violated basic human rights principles and every standard of basic human decency,” they wrote.
Last week, the bodies of 84-year-old Oded Lifshitz, Shiri Bibas, and her two sons, Ariel and Kfir — the youngest hostages abducted by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023 — were returned to Israel as part of the Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal.
Before the handover, Hamas had staged what it called a victory celebration in Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza. The Palestinian terrorist group placed the coffins of the four hostages on a makeshift stage in an abandoned cemetery, turning their deaths into a theatrical condemnation of Israel and its leadership.
Lining the back of the stage was a massive poster of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shown as a vampire dripping with blood, with the four slain hostages in front of him alongside the sentence: “The war criminal Netanyahu and his Nazi army killed them with missiles from Israeli warplanes.” Around the stage, mock missiles bore messages shifting the blame onto Israel and the United States. One read: “They were killed by USA bombs.”
Thousands of onlookers had gathered, including many children and babies, cheering as masked Hamas terrorists brandished weapons. Music blared from loudspeakers, punctuated by chants of victory.
“It is reprehensible that on the very day that these depraved acts that so shocked the world, once again exposing the brutality of Hamas, you chose to omit any mention of this in your comments regarding Palestine in your speech at the G20,” the SAJBD letter read, accusing Ramaphosa and his government of failing to take any action to help secure the hostages’ release, despite their ties with Hamas.
In December, South Africa hosted two Hamas officials who attended a government-sponsored conference in solidarity with the Palestinians. One of the officials had been sanctioned by the US government for his role with the terrorist organization.
Krengel and Milner argued that instead of working toward peace, South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) has lost its “moral compass” and further polarized opinions toward the Gaza conflict.
“Your complete lack of any form of sympathy for this elderly man, these babies and their mother, and your failure to call out Hamas for this atrocity shows how far your government has deviated from the moral compass we were recognized as having in 1994,” the SAJBD wrote. “When the brutal murder of babies is ignored, we know that we are no longer a beacon of human rights.”
Ariel was 4 years old and Kfir was 10 months old at their time of death in November 2023, according to the Israel Defense Forces. They were held hostage in Gaza for 503 days.
IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said on Friday morning that based on forensics finding from the identification process, examination of Kfir and Ariel’s bodies showed Hamas terrorists killed the young brothers “with their bare hands.”
Meanwhile, tensions between Israel and Hamas escalated after an Israeli forensic examination revealed that the body of the boys’ mother was not returned. The Israeli military said the received body “is not that of Shiri Bibas, and no match was found for any other hostage. This is an anonymous, unidentified body.” Hamas returned her actual body later in the week, following outcry from Israeli leaders.
“We feel ashamed as South Africans that our leadership has failed the Bibas babies and other hostages whose return could have ended the war to the benefit of both the Gazan and Israeli people,” the SAJBD letter read. “We wonder if South Africa has lost its credibility to lead such an important organization as the G20 during these critical times.”
Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists started the war in Gaza when they murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages during their invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
Fighting stopped last month, when both sides agreed to an ongoing ceasefire brokered by Egypt and Qatar, with US support. Talks have begun to extend and expand the ceasefire, which so far has included limited hostage releases in exchange for releasing many times more Palestinian prisoners, including terrorists serving life sentences.
About 60 hostages remain in Gaza, roughly half of whom are believed to be dead.
Since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre and the onset of the Gaza war, South Africa has been of the harshest critics of Israel on the world stage.
For the past year, the South African government has been pursuing its case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of committing “state-led genocide” in its defensive war against Hamas in Gaza.
Ramaphosa led the crowd at an election rally in a chant of “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free” — a popular slogan among anti-Israel activists that has been widely interpreted as a genocidal call for the destruction of the Jewish state, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
The post South African Jews Slam President for Failing to Condemn Hamas Murder of Bibas Children first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel’s Top Diplomat Urges Lebanese People to Break Free From ‘Iranian Occupation’
Funeral ceremony for former Hezbollah leaders Hassan Nasrallah and Hashem Safieddine, outskirts of Beirut, Feb. 23, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar has called on the Lebanese people to break free from “the Iranian occupation,” pushing Israel’s northern neighbor to weaken the political and military influence of the Iran-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah.
“The images from Nasrallah’s ‘funeral’ now precisely reflect the historic crossroads where Lebanon stands: The continuation of the Iranian occupation in Lebanon, through Hezbollah — or liberation from Iran and Hezbollah and freedom to Lebanon,” Sa’ar wrote in a post on X, referring to long-time Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli military strike in September. His funeral was held in Lebanon on Sunday.
“The choice is in the hands of Lebanon and the Lebanese people,” Sa’ar added.
The Israeli diplomat’s comments came as Lebanese President Joseph Aoun told a visiting Iranian delegation on Sunday that the country was “tired” of external conflicts playing out on its territory, asserting that Lebanon is not a battleground for others and hinting at a possible break from Iranian influence.
“Lebanon has grown tired of the wars of others on its land,” Aoun told the Iranian officials, according to a statement released by the newly appointed president’s office. “Countries should not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries.”
The images from Nasrallah’s “funeral” now precisely reflect the historic crossroads where Lebanon stands:
The continuation of the Iranian occupation in Lebanon, through Hezbollah – or liberation from Iran and Hezbollah and freedom to Lebanon.
The choice is in the hands of… pic.twitter.com/6aDBZCsfYV— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) February 23, 2025
Iranian officials met Aoun during their visit to Beirut for the funeral of Nasrallah, former leader of Iran-backed Hezbollah, which fought a year-long conflict with Israel in parallel with the Gaza war that ended in a November ceasefire. Nearly five months after his death in an Israeli airstrike, Hezbollah buried Nasrallah in a mass funeral meant to showcase political strength despite the group’s weakened state following the war.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killed Nasrallah on Sept. 27 last year in an airstrike as he met commanders in a bunker in Beirut’s southern suburbs, delivering a major setback to the Islamist group amid an Israeli offensive. The campaign went on to decimate much of Hezbollah’s leadership and military capabilities through air and ground attacks.
Hezbollah’s losses from the war with Israel were further compounded by the fall of its ally, Bashar al-Assad, in Syria, which had long served as a vital supply route for Iranian weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon under Assad’s rule.
During Sunday’s high-level meeting, Aoun said Lebanon wanted “the best relations with Tehran, for the benefit of both countries and people.” According to Aoun’s statement, Iran’s parliamentary speaker Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf extended President Masoud Pezeshkian’s invitation for Aoun to visit Iran.
In a televised address at Nasrallah’s funeral in a Beirut stadium, current Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem declared his refusal to let “tyrant America” control Lebanon.
The United States helped broker the Hezbollah-Israel ceasefire after almost a year of fighting. The conflict, which Hezbollah launched in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas during the early days of the Gaza war in October 2023, resulted in thousands of deaths in Lebanon and widespread destruction across the country’s south.
Under the ceasefire agreement, Israel was given 60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon, allowing the Lebanese army and UN forces to take over security as Hezbollah disarms and moves away from Israel’s northern border.
Though Israel has largely withdrawn from the south, its troops continue to hold five hilltop positions in the area, as Israeli leaders seek to reassure northern residents that they can return home safely.
Tens of thousands of residents in northern Israel were forced to evacuate their homes last year and in late 2023 amid unrelenting attacks from Hezbollah, which expressed solidarity with Hamas amid the Gaza war.
The meeting between Iranian officials and Aoun took place even though regular flights between the two countries had been suspended.
On Feb. 13, Lebanon banned flights to and from Iran after Israel accused Tehran of using civilian planes to smuggle cash to Beirut to Hezbollah and warned of possible military action against such flights. In response, Iran barred Lebanese planes from repatriating dozens of Lebanese nationals stranded in the country, stating it would not allow Lebanese flights to land until its own flights could resume in Beirut.
The post Israel’s Top Diplomat Urges Lebanese People to Break Free From ‘Iranian Occupation’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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X, Meta Approved Antisemitic and Anti-Muslim Ads Targeting German Voters Before Election, Study Finds
Elon Musk, chief executive officer of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of X/Twitter, gestures as he attends the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at the Porte de Versailles exhibition centre in Paris, France, June 16, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes
The nonprofit group Ekō has released research showing that the social media platforms X and Meta approved advertising featuring hate speech against Jews and Muslims that was geared toward users in Germany in the lead-up to the country’s federal elections on Sunday.
The organization submitted 10 German-language ads intended to reach German voters before the election. Meta approved half of the proposed ads while X allowed all 10. Ekō canceled all approved ads before they could appear on the sites.
The five approved for publication on Meta referred to Muslim immigrants as a “virus,” “vermin,” “rodents,” or “rapists” and advocated for them to be sterilized, burnt, or gassed. Another Meta-approved ad called for arson attacks against synagogues in order to “stop the globalist Jewish rat agenda.”
“Our findings suggest that Meta’s AI-driven ad moderation systems remain fundamentally broken, despite the Digital Services Act (DSA) now being in full effect,” an unnamed spokesperson for Ekō told TechCrunch. They added that “rather than strengthening its ad review process or hate speech policies, Meta appears to be backtracking across the board.”
Meta spokeswoman Lara Hesse provided a statement to TechCrunch in response to Ekō’s findings, noting that “these ads violate our policies. None of them were published and our systems detected and disabled the advertiser’s page before we became aware of this research.”
The statement argued that “our ads review process has several layers of analysis and detection, both before and after an ad goes live. We’ve taken extensive steps in alignment with the DSA and continue to invest significant resources to protect elections.”
Ekō’s report said that all of the ads “broke Meta and X’s own policies, and several may have also breached German national laws. Meta rejected five ads on the basis that they may qualify as social issue, electoral or politics ads, but they were not rejected on the basis of hate speech or inciting violence.”
In addition to green-lighting the five ads allowed by Meta, X approved and scheduled five more, according to the study. These labeled immigrants as rodents and said that Muslims were “flooding” Germany in order “to steal our democracy.” Another ad used an antisemitic slur and accused Jews of lying about climate change to sabotage European industry. This ad also included an AI-generated image which featured sinister men at a table surrounded by gold bars with a Star of David behind them.
Researchers used OpenAI’s DALL-E and Stable Diffusion to create the AI imagery included with each ad. One image featured immigrants crowded into a gas chamber while another showed a synagogue on fire.
One X-approved ad specifically targeted the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), accusing the center-left party of wanting to allow 60 million Muslim immigrants into the country. One more ad allowed by X urged for the killing of Muslim rapists and claimed that leftists sought “open borders.” While Meta took as much as 12 hours to approve the submitted ads, X scheduled the ads instantly.
The Sunday election saw an 83.5 percent voter turnout, the highest level seen since Germany reunified in 1990. The center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister party Christian Social Union (CSU) won with 28.6 percent of the vote. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) came in second with 20.8 percent. X owner Elon Musk had previously endorsed the populist-nationalist, anti-immigrant party, saying in a livestream on his platform that “only AfD can save Germany, end of story, and people really need to get behind AfD, and otherwise things are going to get very, very much worse in Germany.” SPD came in third with 16.4 percent of the vote, followed by the Green Party with 11.6 percent.
“Our findings, alongside mounting evidence from other civil society groups, show that Big Tech will not clean up its platforms voluntarily,” the Ekō spokesperson said. “Meta and X continue to allow illegal hate speech, incitement to violence, and election disinformation to spread at scale, despite their legal obligations under the DSA.”
The report from Ekō stated that “at the core of the problem is these platforms’ toxic business model – one dependent on digital advertising revenue and fueled by engagement, no matter the cost.” The report explained that the websites’ systems “are built to maximize attention and revenue, creating little incentive to curb hate speech, disinformation, or incitement of violence.”
According to research released last month by the Anti-Defamation League, 6.2 million people in Germany “harbor elevated levels of antisemitic attitudes,” totaling 9 percent of the population and positioning the European nation with one of the lowest levels of antisemitism globally.
The post X, Meta Approved Antisemitic and Anti-Muslim Ads Targeting German Voters Before Election, Study Finds first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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