The pungent stench of months-old ash remains embedded inside the burned structure that was once home to a long-dead family at Kibbutz Be’eri, the site of one of the deadliest massacres committed by Hamas against Israel on October 7.
I was given just a few minutes to look around the house inside the kibbutz, one of dozens of Israeli communities near the Gaza border that were attacked by terrorists in the early morning hours of Black Saturday.
More than a tenth of the men, women and children living in the kibbutz, once one of the richest in the entire country, were murdered while they slept in their homes.
Now, those still alive have refused to return to Be’eri, famous for its collectively owned businesses, including orange farms, avocado farms and a printing press, and have instead chosen to stay in temporary accommodation in nearby kibbutzim for fear of new attacks by Hamas and the anxiety derived from the constant reminder of the war.
It’s hard to blame them. Months after the attack, in which Hamas terrorists killed some 1,200 people, almost all of them civilians, the community still faces the near-constant reminder of Israel’s bombing campaign against the Gaza Strip, which is less than four miles west.
On Wednesday you see the inside of one of Be’eri’s houses. The walls are blackened by smoke, while rubble and other debris can be seen scattered on the ground.
Perkin was given just a few minutes to tour the house inside the kibbutz attacked by Hamas terrorists.
The kitchen inside one of the houses at Kibbutz Be’eri is seen on Wednesday. Hamas gunmen are documented attacking homes first while residents took shelter inside.
Through a door you can see one of the bedrooms inside an abandoned house on Kibbutz Be’eri. Mattresses are seen on the floor or leaning against a wall.
MailOnline reporter Perkin Amalaraj is seen at Kibbutz Be’eri on Wednesday
According to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, Israel’s offensive has so far killed nearly 27,000 civilians, with at least half believed to be women and children.
Although four months have passed since the deadly Hamas raid against Israel and weeks since fighting between IDF soldiers and Hamas in the northern half of the Gaza Strip, Israeli units were launching bombs and missiles from a nearby area.
My walk through Be’eri was sporadically interrupted by the deafening sound of artillery landing on an eerily close target.
As a result, most of the group felt the need to put on body armor and helmets to at least feel safe from the ongoing “war orchestra,” as one IDF soldier, who wished to remain anonymous, described it.
But all the IDF soldiers who accompanied us on our trip were unfazed.
A young recruit, Ella, 19, shared the harrowing story of how Hamas massacred several members of her family in the early morning hours of October 7, after sections of the terrorist group’s fighters managed to sneak in.
Shortly before dawn on Black Saturday, Hamas terrorists crept up to the kibbutz gates, the same ones through which tourists can enter today, and broke a window of the empty guard post before entering.
They hid until a young man, Benayahu Bitton, 22, approached the bright yellow door with two of his friends, all of whom had been partying at the nearby Nova Festival, site of another massacre that they barely knew about. They managed to escape.
Upon arriving at the kibbutz, a Hamas gunman hiding in a nearby tree raised his gun and discharged several bullets into the dark gray sedan, killing Bitton and his two friends instantly.
On Black Saturday, the kibbutz, a symbolically significant community created in 1946 as part of a strategic plan to help the state resist a then-feared invasion from Egypt, was defended only by a group of civilians trained in defense for times of emergency.
Another house is seen on Wednesday at Kibbutz Be’eri, its roof blackened and its garden overgrown with weeds. Homes have been abandoned and residents have been killed in the Hamas attack or taken refuge elsewhere in Israel further from the Gaza border.
Burned building seen at Kibbutz Be’eri on Wednesday
A young recruit, Ella, 19, shared the harrowing story of how Hamas massacred several members of her family in the early morning hours of October 7, after sections of the terrorist group’s fighters managed to sneak in.
The group was quickly overwhelmed and the head of the emergency team was killed within seconds of the Hamas infiltration.
The emergency squad, with its leader dead, was unable to open the community’s armory where its weapons were stored, leaving many of those charged with defending the tight-knit community helpless.
And so, for several hours, Hamas killed dozens of civilians who could not leave their homes. The high fences that once protected them from the outside world trapped them in a slaughterhouse.
Outside one family’s home, on the large red-tiled porch, there was a pair of dirty Adidas sneakers abandoned by the door that would never be worn again.
The living room floor was still marked with burn marks, left by Hamas gunmen who were documented using fire as a weapon of war against civilians, most of whom were still sleeping in their beds in the early hours of the morning. tomorrow when they attacked.
It still showed signs of life it once lived, with several unwatered plants still filling dusty pots on the windowsills that overlooked a neglected garden littered with shingles.
Between the two windows hung a broken television, now resting at an awkward forward tilt, waiting for an overly curious journalist to get close enough to drop it.
A view of one of the houses of Kibbutz Be’eri. Debris from the roof is seen scattered across his garden.
Another house is seen on Wednesday at Kibbutz Be’eri, which was left uninhabitable after the October 7 attack. The walls are blackened and the roof has suffered serious damage.
But any life that once flourished, relaxed or rested here is gone forever. The probability that the property will be used as a home again reduces every day.
The kitchen fared no better, with cabinets blown out and appliance fragments embedded in the wall.
I counted at least 13 bullet holes in the metal door that led to the far left room of the house, a small space that was intended to be the house’s designated safe room. On the way I was about to slip on a pile of what seemed to be ash whose origin I don’t dare to think about.
I lost count of the number of grape-sized holes piercing the cream-colored walls of the ‘safe room.’
Immediately next to the safe room was a smaller, less protected space that has as many bullet scars inside as the previous one.
Here a chair and a wardrobe were clearly visible. I couldn’t tell if they would fit into a child’s frame and clothing collection, and I struggled to get that thought out of my mind.
Cars destroyed in the October 7 attack are seen piled up near Kibbutz Be’eri on Wednesday
I walked to the last room I was allowed to go to, a small room on the right that was almost certainly used by a child.
It is difficult to describe the primal feeling of nausea that came over me at the sight of the blackened and charred children’s toys and clothing lying wall to wall on the floor of the last room.
Eager to get back out, I stumbled out of the house on a walk I hoped would at least have a veneer of serenity, pushing past several people to get away from what remained of the house, which sits near the western edge of the kibbutz. the closest to the Gaza Strip.
There, the IDF dropped another bomb, surprising everyone except the army troops themselves.