The acrid smell of smoke still permeates the air at the kibbutz village of Kfar Aza where, nine months ago, 64 people were brutally murdered and 19 kidnapped by Hamas terrorists during their deadly assault on Israel. It is a place frozen in time.
Until that terrible day, the kibbutz, which was established in 1951 — making it almost as old as the State of Israel itself — was home to 760 people.
Now it’s abandoned, surviving residents dispersed to cramped hotels in Tel Aviv, and houses — those not burned into mangled wreckage — boarded up.
It’s too traumatic for people to live here, and too unsafe, so close to the Gaza border (just a few kilometres across a field) that when I walk to its security fence I can see the Palestinian town of Jabalia with my naked eye, and hear the occasional booms of artillery shells.
Hilary Freeman in Kfar Aza outside the house where her cousin’s wife, Maya, was murdered by Hamas – the wall is daubed in symbols painted by the IDF to show someone died inside
But the birds and the butterflies don’t seem to have got the memo, and as I stand on the village green, under the shade of pomegranate trees, I get a glimpse of what an idyllic spot this used to be.
Children’s bicycles lean where they were left on the evening of October 6, and flower pots decorate front lawns, which, with nobody to tend to them, are now parched golden by the sun.
For me, Kfar Aza is where the political and the personal collide. I have come here not just as a journalist, or as a British Jew, but to witness a devastating chapter in my own family’s history.
In total, Hamas gunmen killed around 1,200 people on October 7, the deadliest attack in Israel’s history, and one of them was a much loved member of my own family.
Jewish homes in the Kfar Aza kibbutz – they were burnt to the ground by Hamas on October 7. Many residents have no idea when they will every return home
IDF patrolling Kfar Aza after the Hamas attack on October 7
Until the massacre, my mother’s first cousin, Gitit Ben David had lived at the Kfar Aza kibbutz for over 50 years with her husband, Amnon, a legendary cook in the community. My parents had even visited one summer holiday.
For two long days, we had no idea whether they were alive, abducted or dead. I needed to come to see the aftermath for myself.
October 7 was a Jewish holiday, and Gitit and Amnon’s son, Zafrir, 45 had brought his wife Maya, 48, and their two children, aged seven and nine, to stay for the weekend.
At around 6am, they awoke to the sound of alarms signalling rockets, then gunfire. Around 100 terrorists had broken through the fence on trucks and motorbikes, or paraglided their way inside.
Those who could fled to their safe rooms, exchanging frantic WhatsApp messages. But the rooms were built to withstand bombs, not to keep out terrorists, and their doors didn’t lock.
Zafrir, a teacher at a special education school, is a private man, who has never before spoken publicly about what happened to his family.
We are second cousins and, although I met his parents as a child, and we knew of each other’s existence, we had never met before. He agrees to talk to me, from his home in Kfar Hayim, a small settlement in central Israel.
‘In our case, around five terrorists broke into the house, chanting religious slogans,’ he recalls. ‘Two of them tried to open the door of the shelter and struggled with us to break in. When they failed to do so, they shot from the outside in.
‘One bullet penetrated through the door and hit my wife, Maya, and killed her.’
For the next 34 hours, the family remained trapped inside the room, as Zafrir held the door closed, unable even to comfort his children, who were crouched in terror, their mother’s body lying next to them.
Members of Hilary Freeman’s family – her grandma’s eldest sister, Regina (adult, far left), perished in the Holocaust
Regina’s daughter Rachel (pictured), was only five when she was gassed on arrival at Auschwitz. Hilary’s middle name is Rachel, in her memory
Hilary’s great-grandparents, Geni and Chaim, who had fled to Germany in the 19th century to escape pogroms in Poland — they did not survive the Holocaust
‘The IDF did not reach us until the end of the next afternoon,’ he says.
Now, Zafrir not only has to care for his young children, but also try — somehow — to help them deal with the trauma they suffered.
‘I make an effort to keep them busy all day, so that by the end of the day they’re exhausted,’ he says.
‘They have both the experience of the loss of their mother and the horror they have to cope with. They are having treatment and I hope to give them a safe and good future.’
But Zafrir is no longer receiving counselling. ‘I gave up on that,’ he explains. ‘I felt like it was weighing me down instead of making it easier.’
As for Gitit and Amnon, they are elderly, and too traumatised to speak to me.
‘Beyond the enormous loss that happened in their own home, and the loss of the community where they lived for decades, their life’s work disappeared within a few hours of terror,’ says Zafrir. ‘They are currently in a hotel in Tel Aviv, and there’s still no target date for their return, if any.’
He shows me a photograph of Maya. ‘She was beautiful,’ I tell him, and he agrees. What was she like, I ask.
‘Maya always loved nature and the sea,’ he remembers. ‘She was cheerful and humorous, a family woman, and beloved by many who saw her as a close friend.
‘She studied law, but chose to work in special education. After the birth of our first son, she sought a new direction that would bring her renewed fulfilment. She discovered the moringa plant [a rich source of vitamins and minerals] and its healing properties. It became her life’s work.’
So many of those who died at Kfar Aza were, like Maya, nature-lovers and peace activists. Some of them worked with Palestinians and saw them as friends.
Hilary visits the memorial to the 364 young victims who died at the hands of Hamas while enjoying a music festival, with many raped, and 40 abducted, on October 7
Kfar Aza survivor Batia Holin shows Hilary Freeman around the kibbutz, including the house where her cousin’s wife was murdered by Hamas in front of her children
Survivor Batia Holin, 71, who shows me around the kibbutz, is a photographer who collaborated with a Gazan photographer on a joint exhibition in February 2023. On October 7, she learned that he had betrayed her, not only using her photos to help the terrorists plan their attack, but also participating himself.
That morning, at 10am, the assault already in motion, he called her.
‘He asked me about the IDF’s movements, how many were there, which units they were in. He told me he was at Kfar Aza, and I understood he had come to kill me.’ She stayed barricaded in her safe room for 26 hours before being rescued, watching the carnage outside via her camera in her car that was connected to her phone.
As we are talking, a fighter-plane roars overhead, a reminder of the war that is being waged just a few kilometres away, and I flinch.
‘Don’t worry,’ Batia says. ‘It’s friendly. If it weren’t there would have been a siren.’
This is small comfort. I have already been warned that if a siren sounds, the only option is to lie flat on the ground and pray.
Batia has known my family for half a century, and agrees to show me their home.
Unlike many neighbouring houses, which are now burned-out shells with surviving walls pockmarked by bullet holes, my cousin’s house stands intact, a sign reading ‘Gitit and Amnon Ben David’ still displayed on a pole outside.
Only its front wall belies the terror that occurred within. It is daubed in symbols painted by the IDF to show that someone died here, that human remains were inside.
Although I cannot enter, I pause to contemplate what it must have been like for my family, and for the others at Kfar Aza, that morning, as their cherished homes became scenes of horror.
Whole families were tortured and murdered, including babies. It isn’t at all hard to imagine; I can feel it, viscerally.
For me, as for so many other Jews around the world, October 7 re-awakened something deep within us: centuries of persecution that have been wired into our DNA.
Every generation of my family in living memory, and beyond, has been the victim of antisemitic violence.
Zafrir’s grandmother, Lene, and my grandmother, Tilde, were sisters who grew up in Germany, their family wrenched apart when Hitler came to power in 1933.
Lene and two of her siblings escaped to British Mandatory Palestine, now Israel.
My grandma, the baby of the family, couldn’t get a visa to join her sisters and elder brother, but finally managed to find refuge in the UK.
But their parents — my great-grandparents — Geni and Chaim, who had fled to Germany in the 19th century to escape pogroms in Poland — and my grandma’s eldest sister, Regina, who was already married with a baby, Rachel — didn’t make it out. They all perished in the Holocaust.
The records show that Regina, her husband and Rachel, who was only five, were gassed on arrival at Auschwitz. My middle name is Rachel, in her memory.
I am very glad that my grandma, who died in 2016 at the age of 97, did not live to see what happened to her family at Kfar Aza, in the country where they should finally have been safe.
And I’m very glad she did not live to see the resurgence of antisemitism in the UK, which gave her sanctuary.
Or how, every day on social media, I am called a Nazi, a child-killer and a genocide supporter, simply because I believe the state of Israel has a right to exist and defend itself.
And she would cry to know that the great-granddaughter she met shortly before she died — my daughter, who is now eight — has to contend with being singled out at school because she is Jewish. ‘Do you support Israel?’ older boys taunt. ‘Israel is evil.’
From Kfar Aza, I travel to the Nova festival site at Re’im, 14km down the road. It is here that 364 people — mostly youngsters — were murdered, with many raped, and 40 abducted on October 7. Many more were wounded.
Re’im has become a shrine to the victims, their photos planted across the desert land like memorial trees.
I stumble across Irene Nurith Cohn, one of only ten female volunteers for Zaka, the religious organisation which painstakingly collected body parts so victims could have proper Jewish burials.
She describes combing through the dust for specks of blood — the same dust that now stains my shoes and trousers.
Then she takes out her phone. ‘I have images of the torture and sexual violence that happened here and at the kibbutzes,’ she tells me. ‘They are not published, but were shown as evidence at the Criminal Court in the Hague by the team of the UN representative.
‘Would you like to see them?’ She pauses. ‘You don’t have to.’
The truth is, I don’t want to see them, but I tell her I will. I feel it’s my duty to bear witness because so many people are now denying that these things ever happened.
We view the pictures together, until I’ve had enough: people burned alive, raped with implements — things far too distressing and graphic for a family newspaper. The cruelty, pain, degradation and mutilation inflicted on these young people — in a way that can never, ever be referred to as ‘resistance’ — explains why every Israeli I meet, whatever their political persuasion, believes Hamas has to be destroyed so it can never do the same again.
When I ask Irene how she copes with what she’s seen, her answer surprises me. She says it’s hard, but it’s the Jews outside Israel she feels sorry for. ‘We live in Israel, we’re privileged,’ she says. ‘It’s very hard to be a Jew overseas with all the antisemitism. My sister lives in Manhattan, and she’s hiding.’
A short drive away, at Tkuma, there’s another memorial to Nova.
That day, hundreds of burnt and damaged cars were left scattered along Route 232, ambushed by Hamas as festival-goers attempted to escape. Some vehicles were abandoned, their drivers killed or kidnapped, never to return. Around 300 were set on fire, with their murdered occupants still inside.
‘We find ourselves, 78 years after the Holocaust, collecting the ashes of Jews,’ says IDF spokesman, Adam Ittah.
These cars are now stacked together in sculptural form. I notice one car — still bright blue — which stands out from the rest of the rust-coloured metal. It brings to mind the little girl in the red coat in the Spielberg classic Schindler’s List, a flash of colour symbolising individuality, humanity.
Somebody once chose this blue car because they loved the colour. It’s also, of course, the colour of the Israeli flag.
The following day, in Tel Aviv, I go to Hostages Square, where art installations and banners highlight the plight of the 120 hostages (five from Kfar Aza) still held in Gaza.
Nearby, I meet four of the hostage families, including that of red-headed baby Kfir Bibas, who — if he is still alive, and his family will not allow themselves to think otherwise — has now spent more than half of his short life in captivity.
I talk to Ayelet Svatitzky, 46, sister of British citizen, Nadav Popplewell, 52, originally from Wakefield, West Yorkshire. He was kidnapped by Hamas from Kibbutz Nirim. Ayelet’s diabetic mother, Channah, 79, was also taken hostage, but released on November 24.
Ayelet’s other brother, Roi, 53, was murdered. Ayelet had to bury him alone and, on the night of Channah’s release, greet her with the news that her eldest child was dead.
Tragically, after I return home, it is announced that Nadav has been murdered in Hamas captivity.
Ayelet says: ‘My life froze on October 7. All of us are on our life’s mission to save our loved ones.
‘Being a British citizen, I am being active both here and in the UK. The hardest thing is not being able to see an end to the nightmare. It’s inhumane.’
The week I am in Israel, pro-Palestinian protestors try to disrupt a North London film festival showing a documentary about the Nova atrocity.
The same week, three countries — Ireland, Spain and Norway — recognise Palestine as a state, and the International Criminal Court says it will issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes in Gaza.
This news is largely met with incredulity in Israel. While the world has moved on from the Hamas massacres, Israel has not.
Until all the hostages are released, it can’t even begin to. Israel is a country where today, and every day, it is still October 7.
