The smell of death – and death itself – can still be felt on Kibbutz Beeri a week after the attack by Hamas militants that killed around 1,400 people across the country, most of them civilians, according to Israeli authorities. A hundred of them were – according to military estimates that cannot be considered definitive – residents of this settlement, which had a thousand neighbors. At the gates of this agricultural cooperative, at the intersection leading to the kibbutz, Israeli army personnel dressed in white overalls and masks use an excavator to remove a handful of bodies. They estimate there are around thirty. After they are placed in plastic body bags with the Star of David symbol, they are loaded onto a truck that later takes them to a cold storage room.
Ethan, a 26-year-old soldier, estimates that almost all of the bodies found at this site are of attackers who came from Gaza, about two miles away as the crow flies. In any case, he adds, we need to identify them to make sure that they are not one of the Israeli hostages – this impression does not arise at first glance because they are being carried and dumped with the excavator bucket – or that they may even be correspond to the body of a Hamas official. “A slaughter,” adds another uniformed man.
Some surveillance cameras recorded scenes of the massacre. The images show attackers taking hostages in cars stolen from kibbutz residents and some bodies of the deceased. Nave, one of the soldiers guarding the site, shows some of the photos he took with his cell phone. On display are remnants of explosives that the attackers carried with them, copies of the Koran, the Muslim holy book, and even a camera that the jihadists had attached to their bodies to record their attack.
On Saturday afternoon there was a steady stream of Israeli warplanes, which have been punishing Gaza with bombings for a week and which, according to the authorities in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas rules, have already killed more than 2,200 people. Helicopters are also in use in the area. During the afternoon, several rockets were launched from Gaza into Israeli territory. Due to their low altitude, they are easily visible and leave a white trail. The picture is completed by the constant bombardments of the artillery stationed at the gates of the fence that surrounds the strip, with a population density of about 5,500 people per square kilometer, about 60 times higher than the Spanish average.
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There are no longer any residents in Kibbutz Beeri, whose main source of income was a printing press. The destruction is palpable at a site now converted into a military barracks, where hundreds of soldiers await a possible land invasion of Gaza. Several dozen tanks and armored vehicles take up positions next to the fence amid a large cloud of dust.
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Many of the houses were completely destroyed after the attack at dawn last Saturday. There are remnants of fire, debris, bullets, clothing and even some unexploded RPG (grenade launcher) projectiles. As the week progressed, other remnants of the massacre, such as health worker gloves and traces of blood, could not be erased. “About 70 arrived armed with all sorts of weapons, including grenade launchers and hand grenades. “Some families were murdered right on the doorstep of their homes,” explains Fay Goldstein, a young woman who founded a start-up in Tel Aviv and joined the army as a reservist as soon as the Palestinian radicals attacked. “We are at war and my priority now is to help my people more than my company,” he says, assuming he had no other choice.
Israeli soldiers are stationed next to Kibbutz Beeri, which was attacked by Hamas last weekend. Luis De Vega Hernandez
Other houses remain with their doors open. In one of them, no one has picked up the coffee that is served next to the kitchen sink, next to the door of a refrigerator that tells in pictures the story of the family that lived there. Crushed bicycles and strollers were left amid the destruction. In any case, the figures for the massacre in Beeri are not certain, according to the military, which granted a group of reporters access to the kibbutz this Saturday. We need to identify all the dead and know that Whereabouts of the missing. There are fears that some have been kidnapped and remain held in the Gaza Strip. Hamas’ armed wing reports that nine hostages, including four foreigners, were killed by Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip in the last 24 hours.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Kibbutz Beeri and Kafar Aza, a few kilometers further north, on Saturday afternoon, where he inspected the destroyed houses and met with the military. During that meeting, Netanyahu told them that “the offensive is continuing.” [contra Hamás] is on the way,” with the prospect of a possible large-scale ground attack on the Gaza Strip.
Ilan, a 19-year-old soldier who was born in Argentina and came to Israel to join the army, is one of those mobilized to Beeri in the last few hours. His parents live on the other side of the Atlantic, so, as he explains, he is considered a lone soldier. Early on Saturday, October 7, when the attacks took place, he was with some colleagues in Jerusalem, where he lives, and witnessed the Israel Defense Forces intercepting a projectile over the holy city shortly after the alarm began. From that moment on, he knew that the end of his military service would be postponed.
A few meters away from young Ilan, with his rifle also hanging on his back, David, 60, runs through the destroyed kibbutz. Like his partner Fay Goldstein, he is one of those whose job it is to accompany journalists. David assures us that as a reservist he always has his backpack ready. Night falls. Some soldiers sing, others eat dinner, others talk boredly to kill time while they wait for new orders. And fighter jets continue to fly overhead, while rocket trails appear from time to time in the dusky sky that separates Israel from the Gaza Strip. Unaware of the war, turkeys and chickens wander around with no one to care for them.
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