Loved ones of Hamas attack victims diverge over Israel's war on Gaza

BE'ERI – To walk the streets of the small village of Be'eri in southern Israel nowadays is to relive the horrors from the single deadliest attack on civilians in Israel's 75-year history.

The streets of this once close-knit community are now lined with partially destroyed homes. Some were blown open, others burned. Inside one are blood-splattered walls. In another, two childrens' rooms are filled with books, binders, stuffed animals and paint supplies. The mattresses lay in white bed frames and are stained with blood.

On the road leading into this kibbutz, a backhoe scoops up the bodies of Hamas militants who stormed this community of just over 1000 people about three miles from the border with Gaza.

The Israeli military has been leading journalists through this village in recent days to give the world a glimpse of what happened once Hamas militants crossed the border from Gaza into Israel undetected, storming several communities where they killed at least 1400 people and took some 200 hostages.

Many residents of the towns hid inside safe rooms waiting for Israeli forces to rescue them. For hours no one came. When it was finally over and they emerged, the scene was unlike anything they'd ever seen before.

"It was like an apocalypse," said Dan Alom, 23, who waited 15 hours before help arrived. "Everything ruined, bodies lay around."

More than a week since the Hamas attack, which set off a war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza where the group is based, survivors are still waiting to identify bodies and plan funerals

"We're just still trying to figure out how we're going to deal with so many funerals," Alom told NPR's Morning Edition . "We don't know where to bury them because it's not safe."

Over 100 people here were killed, some ten percent of the community.

"I just don't know how to deal with it," he said "For more than four or five hours we were slaughtered and no one came to help us. I don't know whose fault it is but I just know we've been slaughtered."

Alom holds out hope that the two teens he counseled at camp might be alive. Maybe, he says, they're being held in Gaza. He wants them back.

"I am worried about them. And after they will be home, I don't care what happens with Gaza I really don't." he said. "Shoot them all. I don't care."

It's a sentiment repeated among traumatized, grieving and frightened Israelis.

Shoot them all.

Eliminate Gaza.

Erase Gaza.

Their anger is not yet aimed so much at the government for its intelligence failure or Israeli forces for their delayed rescues, but toward the Palestinian enclave.

Visible from Be'eri are plumes of smoke on the horizon. That smoke rises from Gaza.

It's being crushed by a relentless wave of Israeli airstrikes, choked by a complete siege that's barred food, fuel, electricity and water from entering, and is bracing for Israel's ground invasion, all aimed at ridding the territory of Hamas.

More than 4,100 people have been killed. Entire families and more than 1,600 children are gone.

The devastation there is harder to recount because the borders are sealed and so few journalists are inside.

An Advocate for Peace Shot and Killed

Miles away from the border with Gaza, sitting in a Jerusalem cafe, 27-year-old Noy Katsman said they wants the war to stop. They knows Alom's pain but wields it differently.

Katsman lost their brother, Hayim, 32, in the village of Holit about a mile from Gaza. Hayim was hiding in the closet when Hamas militants shot him and was one of 30 Americans killed in the attack.

In life, Hayim was a peace activist. He wrote his doctorate on the dangers of the right wing in Israel and was critical of the government for encouraging illegal Israeli settlements and uplifting extreme anti-Arab voices.

That's why Katsman believes their brother, despite his tragic killing, "would say we should never kill innocent people" and would encourage Israelis to re-think the long-term repercussions of retaliation.

It's a view Katsman stands behind firmly, having seen Israel repeatedly try and fail in stamping out Hamas at the expense of civilian life.

"My government, instead of saying, 'Okay, we failed, maybe we need to do something else,' they're saying, 'Oh, we need to kill more Palestinians. We need to now destroy Hamas," said Katsman. "It's right-wing politicians who gain power from violence and hate, these are the people who gain from it. But we lose from it."

Violence brings more violence, they said.

"You need a basic understanding of how people feel," they added. "And if after they kill us, a thousand people, we are going to kill three thousand of them, that's not an understanding of people, because these people will grow up and hate us even more."

As they speak, people at the cafe begin to stare.

A waitress approaches to ask about the nature of Katsman's interview with NPR.

"Is it pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli?" she asks.

"It's pro-life," Katsman replied. "My brother died on Saturday and he was a peace activist and I'm talking in his name."

As the waitress walks away, Katsman slams their coffee cup onto the table.

"That's the problem – Israelis only care if something is pro-Palestinian or pro-Israel," they said. "This question is a distraction. People die. People die from both sides."

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