Netivot, Israel — The sight of one isolated and full parking lot in Tkuma cuts through southern Israel’s serene landscape. In the middle of farmland sit hundreds of vehicles that have been there since October 7 — cars whose owners were killed, or taken hostage, at the infamous Nova music festival. Tkuma is on the road to Re’im, the site of the festival, and the road that connects the two is known to every Israeli as the “murder” road, the stretch of pavement on which Hamas hunted down and butchered young Israelis who attempted to flee from the festival.
When Hamas attacked more than one year ago, young people at the music festival were some of the terrorists’ first targets. As party-goers fled, Hamas fired. Nearly 900 vehicles were recovered from the site, some burned, some riddled with bullet holes; in many cases, Hamas shot at the vehicles, and then shot vehicle occupants dead. Survivor testimonies, as well as the footage Hamas filmed on that day, corroborate the horrific way that hundreds of young adults died.
Mini-memorials now exist around southern Israel, at sites like Tkuma’s “Car Wall” — including trees that mark where someone was murdered, or where soldiers lost their lives fighting — which I visited on the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ national security trip to Israel this week.
Israeli forces have been quite successful in Gaza and Lebanon, and Israeli intelligence is incredible (see: the recent pager attack against Hezbollah forces in Iran, one of the most targeted, precise attacks). What Israeli forces are not so successful at is messaging. Western propagandists on the right and left believe that Israel’s war has gone on for too long. Hamas is defeated, any failure to achieve a hostage deal is Israel’s fault, and the civilian toll that operations in northern Israel might have on Lebanese civilians is too high a cost to pay to eliminate more terrorists, Israel’s critics say.
But on Wednesday, just miles away from the site of the Nova festival, a siren sounded in Kfar Aza, one of the first kibbutzim Hamas invaded on October 7. Sixty-one people were killed in Kfar Aza, a village of 960 residents, and 19 were taken hostage on October 7. And, even though the IDF has very successfully eradicated most of Hamas’s leadership, still, rockets warnings blare in the kibbutz.
Israelis on the ground are still fighting in Gaza, not because (unlike their opponents) they enjoy the gore of battle, but because they see the remaining 101 hostages as their brothers, sisters, or fathers. They fight because Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran still attack. Two Israeli babies remain in the tunnels, and with them, seven Americans (one of those Americans was captured from Kfar Aza). And what’s more, Israel can’t forget what happened on October 7.
Every stretch of land upon which terrorists hunted for Jews is hallowed ground — ripe with gruesome memories that should not ever fade. Israelis remember what they’re fighting for because they don’t have the option to forget.
In America, and in other Western countries, short attention spans and exciting news cycles dull the memory of the October 7 nightmare. Many soldiers, civilians, and Jewish parents, however, told me this week the one thing every American can do to support Israel: remember.