20231013 一個基布茲如何抵禦哈馬斯

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一個基布茲如何抵禦哈馬斯
數百人獲救。但一群加薩農民在戰鬥中喪生

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2023年10月13日
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閱讀時間17分鐘
文／溫德爾·史蒂文森

10月7日星期六上午6時30分，擴音器響起了紅色警報。對於尼爾阿姆（Nir Am）來說，這並非罕見之事——這個擁有700名居民的基布茲，距離隔開以色列與加薩的圍欄僅兩公里。但那天早晨，警報聲卻不斷響起，一次又一次。電力中斷，手機訊號也突然變得時斷時續。

在基布茲的一處果園裡，一名名叫納比爾·巴拉維（Nabil Barawi）的農場工人抬頭望向天空，看見火箭在頭頂劃出弧線。現年53歲的巴拉維來自加薩，但在尼爾阿姆的田間已工作了40年。他負責監督一支由十名加薩人組成的團隊，種植一種名為「柚子」的大型甜柑橘類水果。他的兄弟哈希姆則管理另一支團隊，負責照料尼爾阿姆的香蕉田。


火箭彈的龐大數量讓巴拉維覺得發生了不尋常的事情。「當混亂開始時，」他後來告訴我，「我對我的工人——另外十名加薩人——說：『我們走吧。』」

約有18,000名加薩人持有在以色列工作的許可證，主要從事農業和建築業。以色列法規規定他們每晚必須返回加薩的住處，但唯一的過境點所進行的安全檢查和漫長的排隊人潮，使得每日通勤幾乎不可能實現。許多勞工在工作週期間會住在以色列的宿舍裡，當局似乎對這種做法睜一隻眼閉一隻眼。在尼爾阿姆工作的這些男子，就住在名為拉哈特的鎮上，距離基布茲約半小時車程。

巴拉維和他的團隊離開果園，坐上了廂型車。司機是以色列人，他載著他們駛上那條由北向南、與加薩邊境平行的主要道路。「沒過多久，不到300公尺，我們就看到路上的平民遺體，」巴拉維對我說。「我們才開了不到150公尺，就看到一輛白色轎車，並聽見『噠噠噠』的槍聲」——他雙手做出掃射的動作，模擬那陣持續不斷的槍聲。司機停車後，他們全都蹲了下來。在連串槍擊中，三名加薩人被子彈擦傷：一人臀部中彈，一人腿部中彈，另一人太陽穴中彈。當槍聲暫歇時，他們滑開廂型車的車門，跑回果園。

火箭彈的驚人數量讓巴拉維覺得發生了不尋常的事情。「當混亂開始時，」他後來告訴我，「我對我的工人——另外十名加薩人——說：『我們走吧』」
在那裡，躲在樹蔭下的巴拉維決定致電尼爾阿姆（Nir Am）的農業主管奧弗·利伯曼（Ofer Liberman）。他自1980年代起便認識利伯曼，當時巴拉維跟隨他的哥哥哈希姆（Hashem）來到基布茲工作。「奧弗告訴我留在原地，在他回電前不要移動，」他回憶道。不久後，利伯曼再次來電，表示局勢危險：鄰近的斯德洛特鎮正在交火，救護車無法前來。巴拉維和他的團隊應留在原地並保持低姿態。

在基布茲內，曾於以色列特種部隊服役十年的退伍軍人亞當·佩萊德聽到了槍聲。他抓起格洛克手槍，小跑著前往前妻的家——他的孩子們正在那裡睡覺。途中，他遇見了奧弗·利伯曼的四個女兒之一因巴爾·利伯曼，以及由十幾名基布茲居民組成的志願防禦部隊「基塔特·科內努特」的負責人。因巴爾同樣因槍聲而感到驚慌。她曾致電軍方，軍方指示她讓志願者們待命。奧弗·利伯曼告訴我，他的女兒認為這項預防措施並不足夠（因巴爾·利伯曼——此後被譽為當之無愧的英雄——已拒絕接受媒體採訪）。佩萊德表示，他指示她打開軍械庫。他返回家中取了個人防彈背心和一包香菸，隨後回到軍械庫開始裝填M16步槍並分發給隊員。

因巴爾·利伯曼致電基布茲的維修經理，要求他不要恢復供電，以確保通往基布茲的重型金屬電動大門無法開啟。「我認為這是她所做的第二個關鍵決定，成功阻止了恐怖分子，」她的父親對我說，「因為我們已經知道，有一輛載有恐怖分子的皮卡車開到了正門，看到大門關著，便掉頭駛向斯德洛特。」



農民家屬 薩爾·帕茲（Saar Paz）駐守在以色列南部基布茲「尼爾·阿姆」（Nir Am）的大門前，抵禦哈馬斯武裝分子的進攻（開頭圖片）。在尼爾·阿姆工作的加薩農場工人納比爾·巴拉維（Nabil Barawi）正試圖將他的工友遺體運回故鄉（上圖）。他的兄弟哈希姆（Hashem）是遇難者之一（下圖）
當天負責防守尼爾·阿姆的「基塔特·科內努特」小隊約有十人左右（關於確切人數的回憶各不相同）。他們兩人一組，部署在圍欄周邊的戰略要點。佩萊德與土木工程師埃利·米特曼被派駐於後門（俗稱果園門）附近，緊鄰一棟新建的房屋。從那棟房子的屋頂上，可以看見雞苗孵化場——那是一座橫跨鱷梨田、距離約250公尺的大型機庫。大約15分鐘後，佩萊德聽見從孵化場傳來的槍聲。在他聽來，那像是幾個人之間的槍戰。很快地，情況便顯露出來：一個以色列士兵排正與一群哈馬斯戰士交火。


佩萊德費盡心力試圖釐清基布茲其他地方的狀況。由於對講機尚未發放，定居團的成員們正透過手機進行通訊。由於他並非常駐志工，因此並未被加入 WhatsApp 群組。

「突然間，伊萊指向 100 公尺外一個正朝後門奔跑的人影。我無法分辨他是士兵還是恐怖分子。他穿著帶點綠色的制服和同色背心，看起來像是我們的人。我朝圍欄跑去，大喊：『你是誰？你是誰？』我舉起槍，將他鎖定在瞄準鏡中。我不知該如何是好。接著，他便跑進了酪梨田裡。」

司機停下車，眾人全都蹲了下來。在密集的槍林彈雨中，有三名加薩人被子彈擦傷：一人臀部中彈，一人腿部中彈，一人太陽穴中彈
佩萊德低頭看手機，發現自己終於被加入 WhatsApp 群組。訊息如潮水般湧來：數名哈馬斯武裝分子已逼近正門，駐守那裡的「基塔特·科內努特」成員向他們開火，擊斃了一至兩人。「如果我當時知道這件事，我就會明白那個人是恐怖分子，而且我會開槍打死他。」

雞苗孵化場的戰鬥持續了數小時。士兵與哈馬斯武裝分子在雞苗孵化場與周圍的酪梨田之間來回奔跑。以色列士兵看起來都很年輕。「我幾乎對他們感到一絲憐憫，但我不能離開基布茲去幫助他們，」佩萊德說道。

好幾次，哈馬斯槍手會從掩體中衝出。佩萊德便會迅速衝向圍欄向其開火。他不知道自己擊斃了多少人：可能是一兩個，也或許更多。

「我以為軍隊會來，但並沒有發生，」佩萊德說。幾小時後，一輛坦克出現了。他看到哈馬斯武裝分子向坦克發射了一枚火箭推進榴彈。「一輛坦克，」他苦澀地說，「在這種戰鬥情況下並沒什麼用。」

巴拉維和他的受傷工人們仍蜷縮在附近的柚子園裡。他每半小時都會透過電話與利伯曼聯繫，但資訊越是多，他就越清楚地意識到，基布茲的任何人都不可能前來營救他們。利伯曼告訴巴拉維要繼續藏好——他擔心士兵會誤將他和他的團隊當成哈馬斯武裝分子。

上午中段，巴拉維的父母從加薩打電話給他，說他們聯絡不上他的兄弟哈希姆。巴拉維隨即致電哈希姆的兒子，後者也在附近工作。對方表示，就在槍聲響起之際，他總算開車逃離現場，並在不久後與哈希姆通過電話。自那之後，他就再也聯絡不上父親了。

下午早些時候，三、四輛哈馬斯車輛——裝有機槍的皮卡車和卡車，每輛載有約十名武裝分子——駛向了這家雞苗孵化場。

「他們屠殺了我們的士兵，」佩萊德說道。

「基塔特·科內努特」的所有志願者都明白自己身處險境。每個人都拼命致電軍中所有認識的人——將軍、退役軍官、特種部隊、地區指揮部——懇求援助。他們說，如果不派增援，尼爾·阿姆將會陷落。

佩萊德估計，現場正集結著40至50名哈馬斯武裝分子。他對「基塔特·科內努特」的成員們說：「聽好了。他們已經屠殺了我們的士兵，現在正朝後門逼近。任何人都不准進入尼爾·阿姆。」他重複了這道命令：「任何人都不准進入尼爾·阿姆。」

雞苗孵化場的激戰持續了數小時。士兵與哈馬斯武裝分子在雞苗孵化場與周邊的酪梨田之間來回奔馳
包括佩萊德在內的八名志願者朝哈馬斯逼近的後門移動。「我們是八個手持M16步槍的傢伙——幸運的是我的槍能用，」佩萊德回憶道。「我們全都站在圍欄附近。我不斷重複著：『誰都別想闖進尼爾·阿姆。』他們回應：『我們就在這裡。我們明白。』我們八個人都明白，如果他們突破我們的防線，就會屠殺我們的家人。」

佩萊德在回憶這段經歷時，臉上幾乎浮現出一絲微笑。「我就是為了戰鬥而生的，我在特種部隊服役了十年。這不是我第一次參戰，我也不認為這會是最後一次。但看到伊萊——那位穿著涼鞋、微微微胖的工程師——站在我身旁時，我看見的是一位戰士。我們所有人都堅守在原地。」


隨後，其中一名志願者「做了一件最簡單的事」，佩萊德說，那是直到那一刻為止，他們都未曾想到的——他報了警。「你知道嗎？警方派出了戰術應變小組。三輛轎車、五輛機車、三輛廂型車。他們扭轉了戰局。」這支增援部隊扭轉了戰局。哈馬斯戰士被擊退，多人喪生，沒有任何人成功突破尼爾阿姆的防線。該地區幾乎沒有其他社區能如此幸運。

接下來的大約一小時內，以色列士兵和武裝警察湧入了基布茲周圍的田野。整整一天，奧弗·利伯曼都與藏身於柚子園中的巴拉維保持聯繫。「奧弗幫了我們大忙，我們都很愛他，」巴拉維對我說。「當我們四面八方只聽見槍聲時，他並沒有把我們丟在果園裡。」

下午5點左右，利伯曼打電話給巴拉維，表示以色列士兵幾分鐘後就會來接他。巴拉維因為害怕，便請利伯曼陪同前往。利伯曼向以色列軍官確認是否允許這樣做，對方表示同意。當他們找到這群人時，利伯曼告訴這些加薩工人舉起雙手出來。十名男子從柚子樹下走出來，其中三人身上有血跡。



紅色警報 尼爾·阿姆距離以色列與加薩邊境僅兩公里（上圖）。該基布茲由厚重的金屬大門和周邊圍欄守護（下圖）
軍事小組護送他們前往基布茲。抵達後，巴拉維致電拉哈特的一位朋友，對方前來接走三名傷者並將他們送往醫院。利伯曼則請一位基布茲成員開車載其餘工人返回拉哈特。

傍晚時分，當巴拉維抵達他在拉哈特的公寓時，他在加薩的親屬傳給他一段他們在社群媒體上看到的影片——這是襲擊期間被廣泛轉發的數十段影片之一。這段影片顯然是當天稍早拍攝的。鏡頭掃過一片慘烈的景象：幾輛汽車以歪斜的角度橫亙在路中央，車門敞開，車窗碎裂。四周到處都是屍體，橫跨路緣石，或俯臥或蜷縮在柏油路上。鏡頭隨後掃向一輛灰色福斯廂型車，車門大開。車內幾具血跡斑斑的遺體糾纏在一起，癱軟地擠在駕駛座車門與腳踏板之間。巴拉維認出其中一人正是他的兄弟哈希姆。

隨後，其中一名志工「做了最簡單的事」，佩萊德表示，這是他們此前都未曾想到的——他撥打了報警電話。
在影片中，可以聽到拍攝現場的男子用希伯來語描述情況。當鏡頭轉向那輛灰色廂型車時，他說：「那裡有一輛恐怖分子的車。」他將鏡頭對準一具從副駕駛座跌落的屍體。「這裡還有另一名已喪生的恐怖分子。這就是目前的狀況。」

另有第二段影片，似乎是稍後拍攝的。這段影片顯示以色列24小時新聞頻道I24的一名阿拉伯語記者正在現場報導。他身穿藍色記者防彈背心，佇立於現場。此時，屍體已被移走，損毀的車輛和那輛灰色福斯廂型車也已移至路邊。該記者從廂型車敞開的後車廂中拿起一瓶五公升的水，說道：「這就是載有哈馬斯武裝分子的車輛。他們曾來到這裡，我們可以看到他們攜帶了飲用水。」

「我哭了，」巴拉維對我說。「哈希姆是我最親密的兄弟。我們曾在基布茲一起工作，並共度了整段人生。他是家庭的支柱、領袖，也是大家所倚靠的人。他有許多子女，還有 25 個孫子孫女。」

巴拉維完全不知道是誰殺害了他的兄弟。「我沒看到是誰幹的。我怎麼能分辨是以色列人還是哈馬斯？說真的，我不知道。」（哈希姆及其同事的死亡情況至今仍不明朗。）

隨著太陽漸漸西沉，基布茲的 WhatsApp 群組開始湧入想要逃離的人們發來的訊息。他們透過電視和社群媒體，目睹了以色列南部各地遭受襲擊的恐怖景象。基布茲緊急委員會主席奧爾娜·施瓦茨告訴我，她試圖解釋離開是被禁止的。當時仍有哈馬斯武裝分子在逃，局勢一片混亂。有些社區仍在等待軍隊抵達。「人們說：『我們可以自己做決定。』」各家各戶擠進車裡，開始駛離。基布茲定居小組成員薩爾·帕茲被派駐在前門。「我告訴大家在路上要小心，這片區域仍有恐怖分子。所以我囑咐他們讓孩子們把頭埋低。那景象慘不忍睹，簡直就是戰區。」

凌晨2點前不久，施瓦茨接到當局關於基布茲強制疏散的通知。她被告知必須在15分鐘內將所有人疏散出去；巴士會在那裡等候。「要去哪裡？」她問道。對方告訴她，他們也不知道。



並肩作戰的戰友 帕茲雖然已不再是基布茲志願防衛部隊的成員，但在襲擊發生時仍衝上前拿起步槍（上圖）。尼爾·阿姆緊急委員會主席奧爾娜·施瓦茨則試圖維持鎮定（下圖）
施瓦茨將年邁體弱的雙親接上車。當他們在黑暗中等待車隊集結時，警報再次響起，所有人不得不先分散至避難所，待警報解除後再重新集結。「開車離開時，我們看到路上有太多翻覆的車輛和屍體，不得不這樣那樣地轉動方向盤才能繞過它們，」她對我說。

那晚，利伯曼載著妻子和其他家人撤離。隔天稍晚，他致電巴拉維，詢問受傷工人的情況。巴哈維告訴他，哈希姆連同另外七名加薩工人以及他們的以色列司機一同遇難。利伯曼回憶起當時對巴拉維說：「你知道現在是戰爭。我們還不能為哈希姆哭泣。等這一切結束後，我們再為他哀悼。」


利伯曼與哈希姆相識已有40年。「他們幾乎是一起長大的，」巴拉維說道。利伯曼告訴我，他曾在1987年見過哈希姆的家人，「那是我們最後一次能進入加薩的時候。我們去了他家。」有時利伯曼會打電話給哈希姆。如果接電話的是哈希姆的妻子——她會說一點英語——他便會跟她聊上幾句。當我問利伯曼，隨著戰事起伏，他與在基布茲工作的加薩人之間的關係是否有所改變時，他說：「這不是我與哈希姆之間，也不是我與納比爾之間的問題。這是政府之間的糾紛。」

襲擊發生幾天後，我在以色列南部的某個加油站遇見了伊梅特·巴拉維。地平線上，一縷黑煙正從加薩升起。他的額頭因憂慮而皺起。像他這樣的加薩日工，如今正非法滯留於以色列境內。與此同時，他的家人則在加薩遭受圍困。他們居住的貝特拉希亞村位於加薩最北部，以色列方面已警告那裡的巴勒斯坦人，若珍惜性命就必須向南撤離。只要網路連線允許，巴拉維每半小時就會與家人聯繫一次。

他極度渴望以色列當局能交出哈希姆和其他人的遺體，好讓他們能被運回加薩並按伊斯蘭教儀式下葬。他獲得的消息顯示，許多被尋獲的遺體都存放在一個軍營裡，且若未經DNA鑑定，當局不會交出遺體。除了哈希姆之外，其他遇難者都沒有在以色列境內的親屬能提供這項鑑定。

我們坐在一張孤零零的野餐桌旁，遠離那間士兵和平民正在喝咖啡的加油站咖啡廳。巴拉維與他兄弟的家人保持聯繫，他們泣不成聲。「對我來說最重要的，」他對我說，「是要澄清我的兄弟以及與他一同遇難的工人們，並非如某些媒體所言是恐怖分子。他們都是持有合法工作證的普通工人。」
他向我出示了哥哥的身份證照片，並遞給我一張手寫紙條，上面列有遇難工人的姓名及以色列身分證號碼。「我們唯一的心願，就是能以尊嚴的方式安葬他們。」巴拉維表示，尼爾·阿姆（Nir Am）的居民正試圖向當局斡旋，以加快釋放這些勞工遺體的程序。即使這項努力成功，哈希姆的妻子和孩子們也難以領回他的遺體：以色列與加薩之間目前正爆發全面戰爭，邊境口岸已關閉。當我問利伯曼，隨著戰事起伏，他與曾在基布茲工作的加薩人之間的關係是否有所改變時，他回答：「這不是我與哈希姆之間，也不是我與納比爾之間的問題。這是政府之間的事務。」尼爾阿姆（Nir Am）以及其他遭襲擊的加薩鄰近社區居民，已被疏散至特拉維夫的飯店。我在海濱飯店「赫羅德斯」（Herods）遇見了其中幾位。大廳喧鬧非凡，到處都是奔跑的孩子。成年人仍在試圖理清發生了什麼事，以及這代表什麼意義。「我們一直在等待，但軍隊卻沒有來，」帕茲（Paz）對我說，她仍在消化這一切。「你習慣了依賴軍隊。你確信軍隊會拯救你。但軍隊卻沒有來。」施瓦茨告訴我，她做噩夢，夢見持槍歹徒闖入他們被疏散到的飯店。佩萊德非常憤怒。「他們怎麼能隨心所欲地闖入並為所欲為，而我們的軍隊卻不在現場？」他質問道。我不禁想知道，他是否還能想像自己再次住在尼爾阿姆。他說他會回去。「但我的孩子們不會再一樣了。基布茲也不會再一樣了。一切都不會再一樣了。」 ■溫德爾·史蒂文森（Wendell Steavenson）曾為《1843》雜誌報導俄羅斯入侵烏克蘭的事件。梅尼·格羅斯（Meni Gross）與艾莉絲·阿帕普（Elise Apap）亦有貢獻攝影：奧倫·齊夫（Oren Ziv）與艾莉絲·阿帕普（Elise Apap）


How one kibbutz defended itself from Hamas
Hundreds were saved. But a group of Gazan farmers died in the battle

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Oct 13th 2023
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17 min read
By Wendell Steavenson

The red alert sounded through loudspeakers at 6.30am on Saturday October 7th. This was not an unusual event in Nir Am, a kibbutz of 700 people located two kilometres from the fence separating Israel and Gaza. But that morning the alarms kept sounding, again and again. The electricity went off and phone reception suddenly became patchy.

In one of the kibbutz’s orchards, a farmworker called Nabil Barawi looked up at the sky and saw rockets arcing overhead. Barawi, 53, was from Gaza, but had worked for 40 years in the fields of Nir Am. He supervised a group of ten Gazans who grew pomelos, a large, sweet citrus fruit. His brother Hashem managed another group that tended Nir Am’s banana fields.


The sheer quantity of rockets made Barawi think something unusual was happening. “When the mess started”, he told me later, “I said to my workers, ten other Gazans, ‘Let’s go’.”

Roughly 18,000 Gazans have permits to work in Israel, mostly in agriculture and construction. Israeli regulations stipulate they must return every night to their homes in Gaza, but the security checks and long queues at the single crossing point mean that a daily commute is almost impossible. Many labourers stay in dormitories in Israel during the working week, a practice to which the authorities seem to turn a blind eye. The men who worked at Nir Am slept in a town called Rahat, about a half-hour drive from the kibbutz.

Barawi and his team left the orchard and got into their van. The driver, who was Israeli, took them onto the main road that runs north to south, parallel to the Gazan border. “Very soon, after no more than 300 metres, we saw bodies of civilians on the road,” Barawi told me. “We had gone no more than 150 metres when we saw a white car and heard a rat-a-tat-tat” – he made a sweeping movement with his hands to illustrate a burst of sustained gunfire. The driver stopped the car and they all crouched down. In the fusillade, three of the Gazans were grazed with bullets: one in the glute, one in the leg, one in the temple. When there was a pause in the gunfire, they slid open the door of the van and ran back to the orchard.

The sheer quantity of rockets made Barawi think something unusual was happening. “When the mess started”, he told me later, “I said to my workers, ten other Gazans, ‘Let’s go’ ”
There, sheltering under the trees, Barawi decided to call Ofer Liberman, the head of agriculture in Nir Am. He had known Liberman since the 1980s, when Barawi followed his brother, Hashem, to work on the kibbutz. “Ofer told me to stay where I was and not to move until he called back,” he recalled. Shortly afterwards Liberman phoned again and said that the situation was dangerous: there was fighting in the nearby town of Sderot, ambulances wouldn’t be able to come. Barawi and his team should stay where they were and keep their heads down.

In the kibbutz Adam Peled, an army veteran who spent ten years in the Israeli special forces, heard gunfire. He grabbed his Glock pistol and jogged towards his ex-wife’s house where his children were sleeping. On the way he saw Inbal Liberman, one of Ofer Liberman’s four daughters, and the head of the kitat konenut, the volunteer defence force made up of a dozen or so kibbutz residents. Inbal, too, had been alarmed by the gunfire. She had called the army, who had told her to put the volunteers on standby. Ofer Liberman told me his daughter believed this was an insufficient precaution (Inbal Liberman, who has since been lauded as the hero of the hour, has refused to speak to the press). Peled said he told her to open the armoury. He returned to his house to pick up his personal body armour and a pack of cigarettes. Then made his way back to the armoury to begin loading M16 rifles and distributing them.

Inbal Liberman called the maintenance manager of the kibbutz and told him not to turn the electricity back on so that the heavy metal electric gates to the kibbutz couldn’t be opened. “I think this was the second important decision she made that stopped the terrorists,” her father told me, “because we knew already there was a pickup of terrorists who had driven up to the main gate, seen it closed, then done a U-turn and driven off towards Sderot.”



Family of farmers Saar Paz was stationed at the front gate for Nir Am, a kibbutz in southern Israel, and defended it from Hamas fighters (opening image). Nabil Barawi, a Gazan farmworker employed in Nir Am, is trying to repatriate the bodies of his fellow labourers (top). His brother, Hashem, was one of those killed (bottom)
The kitat konenut defending Nir Am that day numbered around ten or so people (recollections of the precise number differ). They deployed in pairs at strategic points on the perimeter fence. Peled was posted with Eli Mittman, a civil engineer, near the rear gate, known as the orchard gate, beside a newly constructed house. From the roof of the house you could see the chicken hatchery, a large hangar about 250 metres away across the avocado fields. Around 15 minutes later, Peled heard shots coming from the hatchery. It sounded to him like a gun battle involving a handful of people. Soon it became apparent that a platoon of Israeli soldiers was battling a group of Hamas fighters.


Peled struggled to work out what was happening elsewhere in the kibbutz. Walkie-talkies had not yet been distributed, so members of the kitat konenut were communicating on their phones. He hadn’t been included in the WhatsApp group, as he wasn’t a regular volunteer.

“Suddenly Eli pointed to a figure a 100 metres away running towards the back gate. I couldn’t tell if he was a soldier or a terrorist. He was wearing a greenish uniform and greenish vest. It looked like he could be one of ours. I ran towards the fence shouting, ‘Who are you? Who are you?’ I raised my gun and had him in my sights. I didn’t know what to do. And then he ran off into the avocado field.”

The driver stopped the car and they all crouched down. In the fusillade, three of the Gazans were grazed with bullets: one in a glute, one in the leg, one in the temple
Peled looked down at his phone and saw that he had finally been added to the WhatsApp group. There was a stream of messages: several Hamas gunmen had approached the front gate and the kitat konenut members there had shot them, killing one or two. “If I had known about that, I would have understood the figure was a terrorist and I would have killed him.”

The fight at the chicken hatchery continued for several hours. The soldiers and the Hamas fighters would run to and fro, from the chicken hatchery to the surrounding avocado fields. The Israeli soldiers appeared young. “I felt almost some pity for them, but I couldn’t leave the kibbutz to help them,” said Peled.

Several times, a Hamas gunman would run from cover. Peled would dart forward to the fence to shoot at him. He doesn’t know how many he killed: it may have been one or two or perhaps more.

“I thought the army would come, but it didn’t happen,” Peled said. After a few hours a tank turned up. He saw Hamas fighters fire a rocket-propelled grenade at it. “A tank”, he said wryly, “was not particularly useful in this combat situation.”

Barawi and his wounded workers were still cowering in the pomelo orchard nearby. He was in touch with Liberman every half hour by phone, but the more information he had, the clearer it became that it would be impossible for anyone from the kibbutz to rescue them. Liberman told Barawi to keep hidden – he was worried the soldiers would mistake him and his team for Hamas fighters.

In the middle of the morning, Barawi’s parents called him from Gaza to tell him they couldn’t get through to his brother Hashem. Barawi phoned Hashem’s son, who also worked nearby. He said he had managed to drive away just as the gunfire began, and had talked to Hashem soon after. Since then, he hadn’t been able to reach his father.

In the early afternoon, three or four Hamas vehicles – pickups and trucks mounted with machineguns, each carrying around ten gunmen – drove up to the chicken hatchery.

“They massacred our soldiers,” said Peled.

All the volunteers of the kitat konenut understood that they were in peril. Everyone was desperately calling anyone they knew in the army – generals, retired officers, the special forces, regional command – pleading for help. Nir Am will fall, they said, if you don’t send reinforcements.

Peled reckoned that there were between 40 and 50 Hamas gunmen massing. He told the members of kitat konenut, “Listen up. They have slaughtered our soldiers and they’re on their way to the back gate. No one gets inside Nir Am.” He repeated the order: “No one gets inside Nir Am.”

The fight at the chicken hatchery continued for several hours. The soldiers and the Hamas fighters would run to and fro, from the chicken hatchery to the surrounding avocado fields
Eight volunteers, including Peled, moved towards the rear gate where Hamas were approaching. “We were eight guys with M16s – luckily mine worked,” recalled Peled. “We all stood near the fence. I kept saying again and again, ‘No one gets inside Nir Am.’ They replied, ‘We are here. We understand.’ All eight of us understood that if they got past us they would slaughter our families.”

Peled almost smiled in the retelling. “They built me to fight, I was in the special forces for ten years. This was not my first fight and I don’t think it will be my last. But to see Eli, an engineer in his sandals, with his little bit of a belly, standing next to me – I saw a fighter standing next to me. All of us stayed.”


Then one of the volunteers “did the simplest thing”, said Peled, that none of them had thought of until that point – he called the police. “And you know what? The police sent a tactical response unit. Three cars, five motorbikes, three vans. They changed the fight.” The reinforcements turned the tide of battle. The Hamas fighters were beaten back. A number were killed. None of them managed to penetrate Nir Am’s defences. Hardly any other communities in the area were as lucky.

Over the next hour or so, Israeli soldiers and armed police filled the fields around the kibbutz. All day, Ofer Liberman had kept in touch with Barawi hiding in the pomelo orchard. “Ofer helped us a lot, we love him,” Barawi told me. “He didn’t leave us in the orchard when all we could hear was gunfire all around.”

At around 5pm Liberman called Barawi and said that Israeli soldiers would come and get him in a few minutes. Barawi asked Liberman to accompany them, because he was afraid. Liberman checked with the Israeli officers if that was permitted and they agreed. When they found the group Liberman told the Gazan workers to come out with their hands up. Ten men emerged, three of them bleeding, from under the pomelo trees.



Red alert Nir Am is only two kilometres from the Israel-Gaza border (top). The kibbutz was defended by heavy metal gates and a perimeter fence (bottom)
The military team escorted them to the kibbutz. Once there Barawi called a friend from Rahat who came and collected the three wounded men and took them to hospital. Liberman asked one of the kibbutz members to drive the rest of the workers home to Rahat.

When Barawi reached his apartment in Rahat in the early evening, his relatives in Gaza sent him a video they had seen on social media, one of dozens being shared during the attacks. It had clearly been filmed earlier that day. The camera panned over a scene of carnage: several cars lay at angles in the middle of the road, doors opened, windows smashed. There were bodies all around, across the kerbs, lying prone and bent on the tarmac. The camera then panned to a grey Volkswagen van, the doors flung open. Inside was a knot of several bodies, bloodied, slumped and crammed between the driver’s door and the footwell. Barawi recognised one of them as his brother Hashem.

Then one of the volunteers “did the simplest thing”, said Peled, that none of them had thought of until that point – he called the police.
On the video you can hear the man filming the scene describe it in Hebrew. As the camera turned to the grey van he said, “And there is a terrorist car.” He pointed the camera at one body, tumbled from the passenger seat. “And here is another terrorist finished. That’s the situation right now.”

There is a second video that appears to have been taken a little while later. This video shows a broadcast by an Arab-speaking reporter from I24 news, a 24-hour Israeli news channel. He stands at the scene in a blue press flak-jacket. By this time, the bodies have been taken away and the wrecked cars and the grey Volkswagen van moved to the side of the road. The reporter picks up a five-litre water bottle from the open boot of the van, and says: “Here is the car with the armed people from Hamas. They came here and we can see they were equipped with water.”

“I cried,” Barawi told me. “Hashem was my closest brother. We worked at the kibbutz together and spent our whole lives together. He was the spine of the family, the leader, the one everyone relied on. He has many children and 25 grandchildren.”

Barawi had no idea who was responsible for the killing of his brother. “I didn’t see who did it. How can I tell if it was Israelis or Hamas? Truly, I don’t know.” (The circumstances in which Hashem and his fellow workers died remain unclear.)

As the sun began to sink, the kibbutz’s WhatsApp group started to fill with messages from people who wanted to flee. They could see the horror of the attacks across southern Israel on TV and social media. Orna Schwartz, the head of the kibbutz’s emergency committee, told me she tried to explain that leaving was forbidden. There were still Hamas fighters at large and the situation was chaotic. Some communities were still waiting for the army to arrive. “People said, ‘We can decide for ourselves.’” Families packed into their cars and began to drive out. Saar Paz, a member of the kitat konenut, was posted on the front gate. “I told people to be careful on the roads. There are still terrorists in the area. So I told them to put the heads of their children down. The sight was terrible. It was a war zone.”

Just before 2am Schwartz received notice from the authorities of the mandatory evacuation of the kibbutz. She was told they had 15 minutes to get everyone out; buses would be waiting for them. “Where to?” she asked. They told her they didn’t know.



Brothers in arms Paz was no longer a member of the kibbutz’s volunteer defence force but raced to pick up a rifle when the attack happened (top). Orna Schwartz, head of Nir Am’s emergency committee, tried to maintain calm (bottom)
Schwartz put her elderly and infirm parents in her car. As they waited in the dark for the convoy to assemble, the alert sounded again and everyone had to disperse to shelters before regrouping. “Driving out, we saw so many cars overturned and dead bodies on the road that we had to turn the wheel like this and that to drive around them,” she told me.

Liberman drove his wife and other members of his family out that night. Later the following day, he called Barawi to check on the wounded workers. Bahawi told him Hashem had been killed along with seven other Gazan workers and their Israeli driver. Liberman recalls saying to Barawi: “You know now it’s a war. We cannot cry yet for Hashem. We will mourn for him after this is over.”


Liberman had known Hashem for 40 years. “They practically grew up together,” said Barawi. Liberman told me he had met Hashem’s family in 1987, “the last time we could go into Gaza. We went to his house.” Sometimes Liberman would call Hashem. He would say a few words to his wife, who spoke a little English, if she answered the phone. When I asked Liberman if his relationship with the Gazans who worked at the kibbutz had changed as hostilities fluctuated, he said, “It is not between me and Hashem or between me and Nabil. It’s between governments.”

Imet Barawi at a petrol station in southern Israel a few days after the attack happened. On the horizon, a puff of black smoke rose from Gaza. His forehead was creased with worry. Gazan day labourers like him are now stranded illegally in Israel. Meanwhile, his family is under siege in Gaza. The village where they live, Beit Lahia, is in the very north of Gaza and the Israelis have told Palestinians living there to move south if they value their lives. Barawi checks in on his family every half an hour if the internet connection allows it.

He was desperate for the Israeli authorities to release the bodies of Hashem and the others so they could be brought back to Gaza and given an Islamic burial. He had received indications that many of the bodies recovered were at an army base and that they wouldn’t be released without a DNA identification. None of those killed has a family member inside Israel who could provide this, except for Hashem.

We sat at a lone picnic table, away from the petrol-station café where soldiers and civilians were drinking coffee. Barawi was in touch with his brother’s family. They were unable to stop crying. “The most important thing for me”, he said to me, “is to say that my brother and the workers who were killed with him are not terrorists as some in the media are saying. They were ordinary workers with legitimate work cards.” He showed me a photograph of his brother’s ID card and gave me a handwritten piece of paper listing the names and Israeli ID numbers of the workers who had been killed. “All we want is to be able to bury them with respect.”

Barawi said people from Nir Am were trying to intercede with the authorities to expedite the process of getting the labourers’ bodies released. Even if this were to succeed, it’s hard to see how Hashem’s wife and children will be able to retrieve his remains: a full-scale war is now going on between Israel and Gaza, and the crossing is closed.

When I asked Liberman if his relationship with the Gazans who worked at the kibbutz had changed as hostilities fluctuated, he said, “It is not between me and Hashem or between me and Nabil. It’s between governments”
The people of Nir Am and other communities close to Gaza that came under attack have been evacuated to hotels in Tel Aviv. I met several of them at Herods, a hotel on the beach. The lobby was noisy, full of children running around. The adults were still trying to make sense of what had happened, and what it meant.

“We were waiting and the army didn’t come,” Paz told me, still digesting it. “You’re used to relying on the army. You are sure the army will save you. And the army didn’t come.” Schwartz told me that she had nightmares about gunmen coming to the hotel to which they had been evacuated.

Peled was angry. “How did they come and do exactly what they wanted and our military wasn’t there?” he asked. I wondered if he could see himself living in Nir Am again. He said he would. “But my kids won’t be the same. The kibbutz won’t be the same. Nothing will be the same.” ■

Wendell Steavenson has reported on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for 1843 magazine. Additional reporting by Meni Gross and Elise Apap

PHOTOGRAPHS OREN ZIV & ELISE APAP