Israel is rebuilding, just like the Jewish people always do - The Jewish Chronicle

There are moments in history that force us to ask not just what happened, but what we chose to see. Too often, the world fails that test. It looks away when evil demands confrontation. It rationalises the irrational. It excuses the inexcusable. I felt this last month, standing in the south of Israel at the sites of the October 7 massacre, while on a trip with Elnet.

I had been there before, just days after October 7, when the massacre was fresh, when the blood had yet to be washed away. Now, more than a year later, the bullet holes remain, the homes are still charred, but the world has already moved on. What Israel, and Jewish people worldwide cannot forget, too many have chosen to ignore.

We started the day in Netiv HaAsara, a small village that sits directly on the border with Gaza. It was one of the first places Hamas terrorists infiltrated on the morning of October 7. They moved house to house, murdering 20 residents in cold blood. Families who had spent decades building a quiet, peaceful life were wiped out in minutes. The streets where children once played now carry the weight of unimaginable horror.

From there, we travelled to Sderot. A city that has, for years, been on the frontline of Terror, its residents used to running for shelter within 15 seconds of a rocket siren. But October 7 was diﬀerent. This time, terrorists stormed the streets, moving from home to home, executing people in their bedrooms, kitchens and gardens. The police station, once a symbol of security, was reduced to rubble.

And then we arrived at the Nova Music Festival site. It is impossible to describe the weight of standing there. A place meant for joy, dancing, music and life turned into a slaughterhouse. Young people, my age, gunned down as they ran, hid under cars, tried to escape. Others were brutally taken hostage, held in the dark tunnels of Gaza. I have seen the footage – unedited, raw, undeniable – filmed by Hamas terrorists themselves.

The Nazis tried to hide their genocide of the Jews. Hamas boasted about theirs. They provided proof of their atrocities yet despite the sheer amount of evidence, despite Hamas live-streaming their brutality, we still see denial of this evil on social media and via some news outlets.

That day I visited the south, 20 February, was the day Israel received back four bodies – the Bibas boys, Oded Lifschitz, an 84-year-old peace activist, and the remains of an unidentified Palestinian woman, which were sent back from Gaza in place of Ariel’s and Kfir’s mother, Shiri.

Ariel, Kfir, Shiri (whose body was – finally – subsequently returned too) and Oded had been taken from their home and, according to forensic teams, murdered in the most brutal and inhumane way before their bodies were returned home after more than 500 days.

The morning they arrived back, I watched as the convoy carrying their bodies passed. I stopped. We bowed our heads. And in that moment, there were no words, only the unbearable contrast between those who celebrate death and those who honour it. It was the clearest image I have ever seen of the moral divide in this war. And yet, that night, I was at a wedding – a Jewish wedding, in Israel. A celebration of love and life.

As I watched two people begin a new chapter together, surrounded by their friends, family, and so much joy, I realised this is the story of the Jewish people: moving from destruction to renewal, from tragedy to light. This is what my great-grandmother, Lily Ebert, who survived the Holocaust promised herself when she walked out of Auschwitz: That she would not let hatred define her, that she would rebuild.

That is exactly what the Jewish people are doing now. But the world needs to remember October 7. It needs to remember it not just as an Israeli and Jewish tragedy, but as a human tragedy. On October 7, it was Israeli homes that burned. Tomorrow, it could be ours here in the UK.

The Jewish people are rebuilding, as we always have. But we will not forget. We will not allow others to forget. And we will ensure that history records what happened.

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October 7