In the kibbutz of Kfar Aza, less than two miles from the Gaza border, it is impossible to escape the ghosts of the October 7 massacre.
It was here that 67 Israelis – a tenth of the community’s population – were slaughtered 17 months ago when Hamas terrorists stormed the kibbutz, destroyed families’ homes and seized women and children to be held hostage in Gaza.
When I visited this week, the scars of that horrifying attack remained. The blackened homes of families – many of them peaceniks who worked alongside Palestinians in the fields – are untouched. All that has been removed are the bloodstains and dismembered bodies meticulously taken, processed and buried in keeping with strict Jewish practice.
For the small group of Israelis who have returned to this ruined community, their emotion is overwhelming. Rage.
Shachar, whose wife miraculously survived the massacre after hiding for 30 hours in a safe room, says that his ‘blood is still boiling’ when he thinks about the attacks.
‘I don’t care if the leaders in Gaza build a fence to the heavens,’ he tells me. ‘I don’t want to deal with those people again.’
From this kibbutz in the south to the city of Jerusalem, the anger is palpable. But for many Israelis the target is not simply Hamas, but their own mercurial prime minister Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu.
Bibi’s dwindling popularity has plummeted in recent days amid the breakdown of the fragile Gaza ceasefire and fears for the remaining 59 hostages held by Hamas.
Since hostilities resumed Hamas claims Israeli strikes killed some 600 Palestinians in Gaza – marking a violent end to the peace deal after just two months. But, alarming as this bombardment is, this is an event with precedent. Leaders in domestic trouble create diversionary narratives.
Wherever Bibi goes now, he is dogged by demonstrators. In Jerusalem this week, I passed a noisy crowd of protesters – including an emaciated young man on hunger strike – wearing bright yellow outside the Israeli parliament and again outside the prime minister’s residence. They are furious with their government for renewing hostilities and not letting the ceasefire deal run its course.
While the fate of the remaining hostages (many of them assumed dead) is the principal cause of protesters’ passions, they also fear the threats Netanyahu poses to freedom of speech, the independence of the security services and even democracy itself.
Israelis hold placards of hostages held by Hams in Gaza during a protest calling for a hostage release-ceasefire deal outside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem
I have been visiting Israel and my family there for more decades than I care to remember. Never before have I encountered such a divided society.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) is still the most trusted institution in the state by a long way – despite the barrage of overseas criticism it has faced since the latest fighting broke out in 2023.
But the shift to the Right, a phenomenon which dates back to the election of prime minister Menachem Begin in 1971, has accelerated. And, alongside it, growing fears of an exodus.
I, like many Jewish people, have always thought of Israel as a place of refuge if antisemitism in other parts of the world becomes intolerable. However recent polling shows that only 38 percent of Israelis would ‘prefer to stay in the country’.
I have been visiting Israel and my family there for more decades than I care to remember. Never before have I encountered such a divided society.
I questioned why this was to a cousin as we enjoyed cocktails on a balmy evening. The grandson of Holocaust survivors who served in a high-tech IDF unit, he admitted that he too has been looking to start a new life in the US or Europe. He fears his teenage children will be thrown into lengthy combat roles when they reach 18 – the age at which military service becomes mandatory in Israel – with no end to the conflict in sight.
For it is impossible to forget the fighting here. Before one sits down to eat in the heart of Jerusalem, instructions are given as to where shelters are in case of a rocket or drone attack. The Iron Dome, Israel’s advance defence and interception system, is not by any means invincible.
Alex Brummer
But it is not just the military threats driving Israelis away. As Netanyahu resumed the assault on Hamas strongholds this week, I couldn’t help but recall the 1997 satirical film Wag The Dog about a president who fabricates an overseas crisis to distract from a sex scandal.
When it comes to Bibi, domestic scandals abound. The deeply unpopular prime minister is a friendless leader who has managed to hang on to power for 17 years and clearly intends to stay in office until October 2026 – the last possible deadline for the next election. And, in recent days, there is no denying that he is in trouble.
On Sunday night, he announced he was sacking security chief Ronen Bar. Two days later, Netanyahu reappointed Itamar Ben-Gvir to his governing Right-wing coalition – the nationalist police minister who resigned in January over the planned ceasefire. His reappointment, critics warn, purely serves to consolidate Netanyahu’s control – and will do little to bring about peace.
As the concerns stack up, it feels as though the Israeli leader has managed to blame everyone but himself for the failure to bring home all the hostages and eliminate Hamas. Neither objective, laid out after October 7, has been achieved.
Indeed, the scenes of well-armed Hamas operatives performing disturbing hostage release ‘ceremonies’ last month offered a grim reminder that some of those orchestrating the atrocities remain active. They walk the streets, command the aid stockpiles and control what is left of the ruling apparatus in Gaza.
Reim, site of Nova music festival massacre on 7th October 2023. Pic: Michelle Rosenberg
Nowhere is this felt more powerfully than in southern Israel. Just a 15-minute drive from the kibbutz of Kfar Aza is the site of the Nova Music Festival, where 524 Israelis were slaughtered on October 7.
The site today is a sombre place, filled with row upon row of colourful memorials to the hundreds of young people who were raped, mutilated and burned alive.
Also there, reading tributes to the victims, were grieving families as well as a group of foreign dignitaries taken to remember the slaughter of these unarmed innocents.
Not that the horrors of that day can ever be forgotten. And, as violence explodes again in this troubled region, the threatening shadow it has cast for peace and democracy has never felt darker.
• Alex Brummer is city editor of Daily Mail.
