Letter from Israel – In the Cities of Killing

The Hamas massacre, the air strikes in Gaza, and what comes after

- By David Remnick. Photograph by Peter Van Agtmael

On October 17th, mourners gathered in Gav Yavne for the funeral of the Kutzes, a family of five who where killed at their home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, during the attack that Hamas named the Al-Aqsa Flood.

The only way to tell this story is to try to tell it truthfully and to know that you will fail.

On the evening of Wednesday, October 18th, with the entire Middle East in a state of mourning and outrage, I took a taxi to the information offices of the Israel Defense Forces, a heavily guarded compound in northwest Tel Aviv. Like many reporters, I’d accepted an invitation to see video evidence of the worst massacre of Jews in generations, certainly in the history of Israel—Hamas’s rampage through Kibbutz Kfar Aza, Kibbutz Be’eri, and other communities near the Gaza Strip, extending to an outdoor electronic- music festival, Nova. At last count, the attack throughout what Israelis call Otef Aza—“the Gaza envelope”—had claimed some fourteen hundred lives; thousands were wounded, and around two hundred and twenty people had been kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip. Hamas gave the operation a name, the Al-Aqsa Flood.