Over the weekend of Aug. 23, Hamas launched kites from Gaza, across the border, an area called the Gaza envelope, and into Kibbutz Nahal Oz. Terrorism by kites is how the arson terrorist attacks started in 2018, when Hamas used to launch kites carrying incendiary materials that would then burn the farm fields upon landing. Hamas terrorized the southern border farming communities through these kites until the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, when it invaded and killed, burned, raped, and took civilian hostages. Members of these communities are still traumatized from that day — they are asking the Israeli military to deal seriously and immediately with this renewed threat.
On a recent trip to Israel, I visited Kibbutz Nahal Oz, one of the kibbutzim terrorized by Hamas on Oct. 7. The leader who met with our group, a teacher in the community school who holds a master’s degree in Middle Eastern studies, walked us step-by-step through the horrifying events that unfolded that day and the effect it has had on their community. She said that, for many years, Palestinians from Gaza with work permits came into Israeli territory and worked together with them in these farming communities. She said they thought they could trust them, but not long before the attacks, they caught Palestinian workers taking pictures around the kibbutz.
In hindsight, they realized that the way the attacks were executed meant Hamas terrorists had advanced intelligence on the location of the community armory, how many houses had dogs, the location of the guard station and the head of security, their schedules, and so on. Never, she said, did she think that her community would be betrayed by these people whom she had thought of as friends over the years. The savagery of the Hamas terrorists extended even to livestock — they set the cows on fire, and trapped the calves within a ring of hay bales that were set on fire.
Read the full essay at the Washington Examiner.