Israelis can't live with monsters on our borders anymore

In case anyone is unsure why Israel is still at war, show them this

There is something very private about death – or at least there should be. Perhaps that is why murder is so horrifying. Life is the one thing that belongs only to the individual and the creator.

Invading your body to steal that spark of holiness is a defilement beyond words.

The Gazan invaders went a step beyond murder. They murdered with glee. Laughing with joy.

Signs of their enthusiasm remain, one year later.

How are you supposed to deal with places where this frenzy took place? Places where people you knew and loved had this done to them?

In Kfar Aza, the “young people’s neighborhood” remains untouched. While other areas of the kibbutz are being renovated and refreshed so that life can return to them, this neighborhood is frozen in time - from the bullet holes in the walls and the signs left behind by the rescue workers to the dishes left in the sink by people who will never have another morning. From here hostages were taken and others were murdered. Here the kibbutz decided that visitors could bear witness to the remains of the horror that occurred throughout their community.

Most of the homes are blocked off with red tape. Families who agreed to have visitors see, wanted to keep those last moments between their loved ones and their murderers and the people who found them to themselves. Not private but also not open for all.

One family decided they want visitors to see. They want everyone to know.

A sign above the door explains that the family requests visitors enter. Here Sivan Elkabets and Naor Hasidim lived and died together. Their families added enlarged photos to the house so visitors could see the before, not just the after – an image of their bedroom, clean and neat in contrast to the mattress flipped upside down and the mess on the floor. Images in the living room of the happy couple. The last Whatsapp conversation Sivan’s dad had with his daughter and her boyfriend, Naor.

I couldn’t take in everything I was seeing. All I could see where the holes everywhere… bullet holes… holes also from a grenade? The walls, the refrigerator, even the ceiling, riddled with holes.

The murderers were ecstatic.

This is the entrance to their home. Just this is enough to convey the horror.

The holes in the washing machine. The door. The walls. On the wall under the window, in small letters instructions for the Zaka crew: “Human remains on the couch.”

The bigger writing on the other wall, a mixture of different crews who checked the house for safety and what other tasks needed to be done there. The writing in yellow indicates that on October 11th, 3 days after the invasion, there was a dead terrorist that still needed to be removed. On the door, the Zaka sticker from when the house was finally cleared.

Around the world many seem to have forgotten (or pretend not to know) what happened that day. We cannot. We will not.

We meant it when we said NEVER AGAIN.