From 8-11 September 2024, I was in Israel for a conference called The October Effect, organised by the Danube Institute and the Israel Defense and Security Forum (IDSF).
The conference brought together friends of Israel from Hungary, the Czech Republic, America, Belgium and the UK to discuss the growing anti-Semitism and the effects of war.
The meeting included a visit to the site of the barbaric, genocidal Islamist terror attack on 7 October 2023 by Hamas.
Although many of the settlements attacked on 7 October had had enough of ‘disaster tourists’, the residents of moshav Netiv Ha’asara let us into their homes to see for ourselves the details of the modern-day holocaust(s).
Founded in 1982, the settlement was invaded by 35 Hamas terrorists, killing 22 Israelis and wounding others.
We then visited the “car wall” near Tekuma, where a memorial was erected using burnt-out, shot-up cars of Israelis who arrived at the Nova festival or were caught on the roads.
Finally, we visited the former site of the Nova festival itself, where a memorial had also been set up by relatives.
What we saw was shocking.
Less than a year after the genocide, the historian’s task is to document and present – the interpretation of the events, the waves of events that are not yet fully visible, is something to be concentrated on later.
In Netiv Ha’asarah, in response to the attack, a 50-metre-high Israeli flag was erected, which, although not blown by the wind when we visited, was still an impressive sight.
The message of the flag: the people of Israel are alive, not broken by the Hamas attack.
Thus, a blessing flows from the memory of the victims of 7 October.