Jessica Elter mourns by the car of her boyfriend, Ben Shimoni, at a memorial of burnt cars from the massacre at the Nova Festival on Oct. 7, 2023.David Blumenfeld/The Globe and Mail
Tears slipped from Jessica Elter’s eyes as she climbed into her boyfriend’s shot-up car for the first time in the year since he was murdered by Hamas.
“It’s a hard thing for me, coming here. This was our car, we were driving it daily,” said the 28-year-old model and law student, whose boyfriend Ben Shimoni has been hailed as one of the heroes of Oct. 7 for repeatedly driving into the areas seized by Hamas that morning to rescue other fleeing Israelis. He and two passengers were shot and killed on Mr. Shimoni’s third trip into the conflict zone.
Ms. Elter sat for a long moment in the driver’s seat of the black SUV on Sunday, hours ahead of the first anniversary of the day that changed her life, and her country, forever. “It was like I could see his body lying inside, asking for help,” she said afterward.
People hold pictures of hostages as they attend a pro-Israel vigil on the anniversary of a Hamas attack on Israel that triggered the ongoing war in Gaza in front of McGill University, in Montreal.Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press
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Mourning Oct. 7, the day that forever changed the lives of Israelis and Palestinians
Mr. Shimoni’s car is one of hundreds of burned and bullet-riddled vehicles that have been gathered into a temporary memorial along the side of a highway near Israel’s border with Gaza. Most of them belonged to Israelis who were shot dead as they tried to escape from the Nova festival, an all-night music party just outside Gaza that was carrying on until 6:29 a.m. on Oct 7, when it was interrupted by a barrage of Hamas rockets, followed by the arrival of armed fighters.
Some of the vehicles – pickup trucks with poles where machine guns were mounted during the surprise attack – belonged to Hamas fighters. “Terrorist vehicles,” a sign explains.
“This place is very important, because there are people who don’t know what happened here, who don’t believe what happened,” Ms. Elter said. “This is our proof.”
Israeli soldiers pay tribute at the Nova Festival memorial site.David Blumenfeld/The Globe and Mail
A short drive away, the field where the Nova festival was held is now marked by a freshly planted grove of trees, one sapling for each of the 364 people who were killed either at the festival or trying to escape it. A silence hung over the grove on Sunday that was broken intermittently by the sound of warplanes overhead and outgoing artillery fire, as the Israeli military continued to pound Gaza as it has every day since the Hamas attacks.
Many of the visitors to the Nova site on Sunday were fresh recruits about to begin their own military service. “This only increases my motivation. It makes me feel like I need to serve my country, because if our generation doesn’t do this, things like this will happen again and again,” said 18-year-old Jonatan Maik.
The festival site and the car graveyard are just two of the memorials Israelis have been visiting in recent weeks, as the country grapples with how to remember the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust – and a moment that launched the country into an expanding war that now sees Israel fighting in both Gaza and Lebanon.
Roads, bridges and buildings in Israel are draped with photographs of those who were killed or went missing on Oct. 7, a day that left almost 1,200 Israelis and foreigners dead and saw some 250 others taken to Gaza by Hamas as hostages.
Friends and family of Uria Litman gather for a memorial service near Mefalsim, Israel, honoring the young woman killed at the Nova Festival and found under a tree next to the car in which she had tried to escape.David Blumenfeld/The Globe and Mail
In a still-young country replete with memorials to the Holocaust and Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, the question of how to remember Oct. 7 is a highly politicized one. Supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government are planning to gather for an official ceremony on Monday in the southern city of Ofakim, where 47 people were killed in the Hamas attack.
That memorial, however, is being scorned by families and friends of the dozens of hostages still being held somewhere in Gaza a year on from the attacks, amid fury that Mr. Netanyahu’s government hasn’t signed a ceasefire deal to bring the missing Israelis home.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, an umbrella group representing relatives of those being held captive in Gaza, is holding a separate memorial on Monday in Tel Aviv, saying the “resounding failure of the government” to return the hostages disqualified it from being able credibly to mark Oct. 7.
The same group is also planning a protest outside Mr. Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem on Monday – beginning at 6:29 a.m., the same time that Hamas launched its invasion a year ago – “to remember, to demand action, and to bring our loved ones home.”
Most of the kibbutzim near Gaza that were invaded on Oct. 7 are also refusing to take part in the official celebration, amid lingering anger over the long hours when they were left to fend for themselves before the Israeli army arrived to battle Hamas. Many of the kibbutzim are holding small, closed ceremonies to mark the day among residents.
A memorial site stands at the scene of the Nova Festival massacre, where on October 7, 2023, over 364 Israelis were murdered, and more than 40 were taken hostage by Hamas.David Blumenfeld/The Globe and Mail
The horrors of the Hamas attack have also spawned a small commercial industry offering tours to those who want to see for themselves what happened on Oct. 7.
Tour guide Slava Bazarsky made a pre-Oct. 7 living leading foreign tourists around Israel. Some came to see the holy sites of Jerusalem, Nazareth and the Dead Sea, others came for adventure tourism and the nightlife of Tel Aviv. But all the bookings that Mr. Bazarsky had for the days and weeks after Oct. 7 were immediately cancelled, and there were no new bookings being made.
After a month of unplanned leave, the 39-year-old came up with the idea of offering tours of the Oct. 7 sites, including the Nova site and the vehicle graveyard. He also takes visitors to Sderot, the scene of a major battle that saw Hamas fighters briefly take over the city’s main police station, as well as a nearby hill where Mr. Bazarsky’s guests can use binoculars to see for themselves the scale of the destruction in Gaza. “People come to pay respects. People come to witness,” he said.
A year of Israeli attacks on Gaza has killed more than 41,800 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, while the Israeli military says 727 of its soldiers have died in action in the crowded coastal territory that is home to about 2.1 million people. In addition to the missing hostages, the fate of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, a key target for Israel, also remains unknown.
“We’ve been living like this for a year,” said Michal Fishbein, a 47-year-old who was touring the vehicle graveyard on Sunday, wearing a T-shirt that called for the hostages’ immediate return. Ms. Fishbein’s 18-year-old daughter is about to begin her mandatory military service, as the war that began on Oct. 7 continues to rage and expand.
“It’s scary. We don’t know when this will end.”