In Israel, Kibbutz Sa’ad is the only one in the area to have resisted the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7. A month later, it became a garrison town, just three kilometers from the Gaza Strip.
At dawn on October 7, Hamas commandos spread terror in towns and villages around the Gaza Strip. 1,400 dead, mainly civilians, more than 240 hostages still in the hands of the terrorist organization and the kibbutz decimated then emptied of their inhabitants. They were all on Route 232, which runs parallel to Gaza’s eastern border. Only one resisted: that of Sa’ad.
Ragiv shields his eyes from the sun and looks towards the sky. “What we hear is a drone monitoring the area.” The artillery is at work, the cannons are outside the village and the shells are flying over the heads of the dozens of soldiers who now live here. Ragiv is one of the last Sa’ad residents still there, along with the 15 other members of the kibbutz security.
Automatic rifle slung over his shoulder, he organizes the defense of the premises, a command center hidden five or six meters below the ground. A month ago, on October 7, from 6:30 a.m., he led operations to protect the 1,048 inhabitants of the kibbutz and their loved ones. That day in Sa’ad, located just three kilometers from the Gaza Strip, there were no deaths, injuries or disappearances.
“They arrived at the door you came through”
Ragiv, a resident who remained on the kibbutzat franceinfo
“There were around twenty terrorists. There was an exchange of fire between soldiers passing by outside and our self-defense group who blocked the access from the inside. Sa’ad is a religious kibbutz. On Shabbat it is completely closed. No vehicles are moving, no one is coming in or out. So we were able to arrive at the armory on time and then get into position. It’s a miracle that we escaped the worst.”
One month later, it’s time to take stock: “The army, our leaders, we have all deluded ourselves.” Ariel is a liaison between the Israeli army and kibbutz security. “We thought that on the other side, we were dealing with citizens, people with whom we could make peace”he says. “We brought workers from Gaza into Israel. They worked for us. But today, it is no longer possible to have them as neighbors. I no longer want to live in shelters, I want to live normally.”
The only solution for Ariel is now, according to him, “to crush Hamas”and to definitively bring down the security barrier between Gaza and Israel which, in any case, did not resist the attack of October 7.
Displaced residents
The kibbutz residents have since been moved to a hotel on the shores of the Dead Sea, more than 100 km east of Sa’ad. Last Sunday, there was even school, notably for the 23 students in the CM1 class, under an air-conditioned tent. In the first and second row, Roï and Yla, nine years old. “We’re like Bedouins, like in the 1960s. My grandfather told me that. In Sa’ad, it’s still dangerous, there are alerts and missiles. We bored here. I want to go home. We don’t have our books or our pencil cases, lots of things are missing. It’s not like home.“
370 children and adolescents, like Roï and Yla, returned to school under the 15 tents set up in the hotel parking lot. They work on their chairs and tables, brought back from the kibbutz a few days ago. They also kept their mistress. The latter, Tali, has completely adapted her teaching. “It’s important that the schedule resembles what they did before. But we also organize talking circles to discuss everything”she says. “With the girls, I set up a writing project, they evoke their memories in a sort of war diary. There was a lot of crying. The girls worry about their brothers who are at home. army. It awakens a whole bunch of feelings that are not easy to deal with. But we cope.”
Nearly 200 women and men from Sa’ad were called into the army, or one in five residents. The other 800 occupy the 296 rooms of this hotel, far from the desert. For the moment, the State continues to finance emergency accommodation until December 31.