Kfar Aza One Year Later: a Neighborhood Tour of Unthinkable Carnage against a Village of Peace

KFAR AZA, Israel – One of the communities most severely affected on October 7th, 2023, was Kfar Aza, just outside the Gaza Strip.

Our CBN News team visited to understand more about some of the worst attacks on that terrible day.

Israel Defense Forces Reserve Captain Maya Bentwich gave us a first-hand tour of the kibbutz, one of 22 kibbutzim attacked by Hamas. Of the 950 residents here, Hamas murdered 63 and kidnapped 18

Bentwich told us, "I'm going to try and take you back to October 7th. – at 6:30 a.m., where we have 15 minutes, nonstop, ongoing alarms that were alarming even for the people who lived here, and we're used to living under fire. Less than 30 minutes later, we have hundreds of terrorists infiltrating this very kibbutz. (The) estimation is 300 to 400."

Bentwich continued, "They come in by air with gliders, Buckeyes by land, with pickup trucks. Most of them had machine guns glued on them,  on ottomans and with motorbikes, and then, unfortunately, came in very well prepared – and they just start shooting, rampaging, screaming, and yelling in Arabic.  They come in with guns, RPGs, grenades, bombs, and they just start shooting. And people are hiding inside their mamads (bomb shelters in homes). And this is what's going on. This is before 7:00 a.m."

"She added that the mamad "Is supposed to be protecting you from bombs, from missiles – not from terrorists. And this is the reality of October 7th."

We walked along what has become the "Street of Death."

"It's not just bodies," Bentwich explained. "You'd have to smell bodies – bodies that were beheaded, that were raped, sexually assaulted, set on fire."

As the tour went along, she pointed out a man with his dog, and recalled, "This man and this dog survived October 7th. Oh, wow. And she (the dog) stayed silent.  And now they're back here."

We met Raphael while walking through the community.

We asked, "So how did you survive?" He replied, "A lot of prayer, and it's not a logical thing because it's not. Ten meters away from me were people being killed and houses burned. So I have no logic (to) explain, to say why I'm alive and they are not. It is what it..." He points up to the sky.

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Bentwich is concerned that as time goes on, their story is in danger of being drowned out.

"One thing is to remember the people, to tell the stories because there are so many," she said, "but another is to keep on giving context. We are not in a state of trauma, or this happened to us. The situation is that (it's) something that should concern humanity, not just our nation, not just our people, not just the Jews."

Bentwich continued, "Something happened here on a humanitarian level that should concern the world. And the world is stating a lot of opinions as to what's going on around us.  And I get that. But you still need the context and this is the context because like I said, on October 6th there was a ceasefire and (on) October 7th, Hamas chose to break it up."

Our guide then took us to a different neighborhood in the community.

"If you'd asked residents of the woods, they'll tell you it was the most beautiful neighborhood," she stated. "Almost every single person that lived here and was here on the seventh was either murdered or kidnapped, especially from the strip we (were) just walking in.

Bentwich continued, "From this strip (of road) you'll see their names and faces. When you see the red writing on the signs, that means they were murdered. And when you see the yellow writing, it means they were kidnapped." 

Later, with Gaza in the background, Bentwich explained about the second wave of terrorists on October 7th. 

"They were wearing regular clothes. They were not wearing the normal (Hamas) forces uniforms. And they loot, but not only do they loot. They did a lot of atrocious acts. A lot of the atrocious acts were done by them. They did the murdering, the raping, the sexual assault, the kidnapping. A lot of it was done by them," she explained. "And then they go back. But the mess you still see outside these apartments was not done by us. Most of it was not done by the (uniformed Hamas) terrorists.  It was done by those (civilians) who came to loot, by those Gazans." 

Many of the people who lived in Kfar Aza believed in peace.

"We're talking about people that would go at least once a week to the Gaza border to pick up sick kids and women who had cancer, drive them to hospitals in the center of Israel so that they could get proper medical treatment, with their own cars," Bentwich related. "They didn't get paid for it. They did it out of the kindness of their hearts and out of the need to build a better future because they believed in peace."

We talked with the captain about her calling.

"I'm honored to be doing this because I think it's important for people to see it," she shared. "And that as time goes by, it gets harder to see it and to understand, and especially what the world is getting (in the way of information). So, we need to get it out there. Every person that comes here, I tell them when they finish here, I'm going to say the same thing to you – that you're now ambassadors. You're not just a part of our heartbeat. You're now ambassadors because seeing it with your own eyes is different."

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