MELANIE PHILLIPS SUBSTACK
Never again
February 15, 2025

I made a pilgrimage this week to the the area of the south-western Negev that was devastated by the Hamas pogrom on October 7…The eerie silence of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, whose once idyllic aspect is still visible through its shrubs and spacious landscaping despite the wrecked and deserted houses…Further into Kfar Aza, the scene is very different. This is not tranquil. This is a place of the utmost horror. These houses are laid out in neat rows with neighbours facing each other across the pathway. In two of these double rows, the inhabitants of every single house were murdered or kidnapped. Not one house was spared. Every house is wrecked. Outside each one are pictures of the murdered or the kidnapped who had lived there. Most are taped off. Every house has symbols painted on the outside by those who came to retrieve the remains of the slaughtered. A circle with a dot, we are told, means a body or body parts were inside. READ MORE