I Went To The Nova Festival Massacre Site — Part 1
The Road To Nova
It’s the ninth month of the Hamas-Israel war and last week I had a thought: Why haven’t I visited ground zero yet? The public was banned from the kibbutzim nearby but nothing prevented me from driving only an hour from my home to get to the Gaza border, walking the fields and going to the Nova Music Festival massacre site which has become a place of pilgrimage for anyone wanting to understand what happened there on Oct. 7, 2023.
Was I too lazy to make the effort? Was I afraid of what I would see there? Is it too emotionally painful to see the massacre sites? Is it too soon and the wounds are still fresh? It wouldn’t be my first time in a place like that: I visited the killing pits of Ponary forest in Lithuania, I’ve been to Yad Vashem multiple times and I’ve been at the killing fields of Cambodia. I’m not a child, I knew exactly what I was about to experience so what was I waiting for???
I didn’t have a satisfactory answer to this question so I decided to take a dive and go ASAP.
On The Road
As I approached the town of Sderot, which is only a few miles from the Gaza Strip security fence, my car started making weird noises so I stopped on the side of the road since I thought something was caught between my car’s wheels. There was nothing out of the ordinary. Then I noticed that the road was scarred by tank tracks from Oct. 7. I didn’t expect that.
I decided to have breakfast in Sderot before moving on. I haven’t been in Sderot since 2008. Back then this tiny town was constantly under rocket fire from Gaza. My army unit at the time wanted to do something nice for the town’s citizens. We all drove to Sderot and worked renovating the homes of the town’s citizens. It was very fulfilling to volunteer and help them during those hard times under fire.
It’s a custom in Israeli restaurants to leave one table for the hostages to remind us that one hundred and twenty Israelis and other nationals are still held hostage by Hamas. The restaurant had that table ready.
After breakfast, I continued driving on Road 232 which has become famous by hundreds of burnt cars and bodies all along this road on Oct. 7. Had you asked me where Road 232 was before the current war, I wouldn’t have known. Now it’s infamous.
I reached the first mobile shelter cube. It was full of bullet holes and grenade fragments. There were hundreds of mourning writings on the walls. Messages left for the dozens of young people killed in this “safe” place by ruthless murderers. It was painful watching this.
I continued driving and every few meters there were memorial sites for those killed at those sites. It was heartbreaking reading about the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre.
I reached the gas station of Kibbutz Kfar Aza. The last time I was there, it was during the disengagement from Gaza in 2005. This gas station had changed considerably since that time. Read about my Gaza disengagement experience here:
On the morning of Oct. 7, a group of terrorists came to this gas station and tried to enter the convenience store. The Bedouin cashier, Mas’ad Armilat, was quick on his feet, locked the door and had everyone hide in a safe room. The terrorists tried to break in but were not able to get into the store and eventually gave up. Mas’ad was able to save his own and the lives of twelve others.
I continued driving until I reached the gates of Kibbutz Kfar Aza. On Oct 7 the Kibbutz lost 64 of its sons and daughters, in some cases entire families. Nineteen more were kidnapped to Gaza.
Civilians are banned from entering the attacked communities without a permit. I didn’t have one. I had to turn around and as I was driving away, I saw a country road leading to the fields of the Kibbutz where they grow watermelons.
Shejaiya View
The road was not blocked and there was no sign saying I couldn’t drive that way. As I was not breaking any law, I chose to take the road less traveled. After a few minutes of driving, I reached the Gaza security fence. I stood surrounded by sunflower fields and could see the ruins of Shejaiya (the eastern district of Gaza City) in the distance. The damage is extensive… It was only a few hundred meters but felt light years away. I was standing next to a watch tower, looking at Gaza ruins and thinking: Was it worth it? Are Gazans happy with the results of the Oct. 7 massacre? Hamas’ Shejaiya brigade was the one that invaded this sector and slaughtered the kibbutzniks of Kfar Aza.
As I stood on that road, I thought about the Gazans who broke in through that fence and drove only five minutes into the Kibbutz. Most of them are killed or captured now.
I took photos of the fence and Shejaiya ruins and was ready to move on as I was approached by an IDF patrol. The lieutenant at the head of the patrol demanded to know what I was doing in a dangerous military-restricted area!
I explained that I was on a pilgrimage to the Oct. 7 sites and that I was collecting materials for this article. The patrol soldiers were not angry. The Lieutenant demanded to see the photos I had taken and told me to delete the ones of the up-close fence for security reasons, which I did.
The lieutenant instructed me to follow them out of that area and we drove towards Kibbutz Nahal Oz. As we reached it, the lieutenant told me the company commander wanted to speak to me to understand what I was doing there. We waited a few minutes during which I had a pleasant talk with the soldiers about the ongoing war and their service. The company commander arrived with the battalion’s commander deputy and they interviewed me again about my presence on the Gaza border. They were kind and told me to get out and not to come back. I was a nuisance to them.
We parted on the best of terms. I wished them victory in the war and a safe return home. I was delighted to meet these young men, fighting courageously to keep our country safe and to allow my kids to sleep well at night. I don’t take their efforts and sacrifices lightly.
On The Way To The Nova Festival Site
I got back to Road 232, outside of Kibbutz Nahal Oz, and continued towards the Nova Festival massacre site. On my way, I came across another mobile shelter cube. This is the one where the story of Aner Shapira became legendary in Israel. This hero saved many lives while dying himself on Oct. 7.
I took several pictures and read the writings on the walls. I talked with two other Oct. 7 pilgrims like me who came looking for answers to the question what the hell had happened that day? This shelter saw an epic act of heroism that day but that’s the problem: Heroism is found in places where the system breaks. If everything works fine, there is no need for anyone to be heroic. I still don’t have the answer but it’s obvious that Israel was broken on Oct. 7. There were not enough battalions on the border to stop the invasion, the relief effort was chaotic and lack of actionable intelligence in real-time. These are all tactical or operational-level mistakes. They can’t explain what happened that day.
The worst mistakes should be investigated on the strategic level: the ideas that Israel and Hamas could co-exist and that Israel had reached the point in its evolution when it was safe from existential threats.
After ten more minutes of driving, I reached the Nova Music Festival massacre site which has become the non-official memorial site for the Oct. 7 events but let’s leave that for part 2 of the article.
Note: All of the images are my own
