Ruminations: "Death Alley"

"Earlier this week, I was speaking with a friend who met with the parents of a young female hostage."
"Should their daughter not be released imminently, they are terrified that, on top of all the existing horror and trauma, if she is pregnant, an abortion may not be possible."
"Based on testimonies, it is believed that several female captives are pregnant."
Vivian Bercovici, former Canadian ambassador to Israel

A covered body is seen lying on the ground in Kfar Aza.

Muhammad Darwish/CNN

Official Israeli investigations into the October 7 terrorist attack in southern Israel confirms that an estimated three thousand terrorists comprised of Hamas operatives as well as Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terror groups breached the border fence between Gaza and Israel in dozens of places, to enter Israel on foot, by truck, motorcycles and SUVs, followed by ordinary Palestinian men, in the presence of Palestinian journalists and photographers to document their entry as a tour-de-force of Palestinian 'resistance' against 'occupation'.

Those thousands fanned out in pre-arranged directions, following an orchestration of planned violence that had been endlessly rehearsed in mock villages set up near the border in Gaza as training events for the attack that would result on October 7. They were well prepared, in possession of maps laying out the areas with identification for the villages to be attacked. They had precise statistics of where weapons were stored in the villages and knew the location of homes of kibbutz security officers.

As they stormed those agrarian villages, the initial attention was given to secure the armouries, then to attack the homes of the security officers. An orgy of murder, torture, mutilations, gang rape, arson, looting and hostage-taking ensued in a murderous bloodbath of civilian populations. Early that morning a barrage of thousands of rockets had been unleashed from Gaza into Israel. That distraction gave cover to the thousands of terrorists run amok in mayhem and slaughter.

A screenshot from a video, geolocated by CNN, shows six Hamas militants arriving at Be'eri on Saturday morning local time. Obtained by CNN

The kibbutz of Kfar Aza was one of the worst-hit of the villages that had been methodically destroyed, its inhabitants killed, whether elderly and incapacitated or infants and children. A special drama took place in one of the besieged homes where the mother of ten-month-old twins exited her family's safe room planning to warm bottles of milk formula for her babies. A sniper shot her dead. Her husband followed and was shot dead.

The two infant girls cried for the next ten hours. The sniper shot at anyone who tried to attempt a rescue of the babies. When it was fully understand that anyone who would attempt to save the the children would pay with their lives, rescue efforts came to a tragic halt.

In the village, rows of homes are now cordoned off with hazard tape, spray painted with codes and symbols indicating the dates they had been inspected by the military. Also noted is the fate of those who had occupied the area now called 'Death Alley'. Murdered. Missing. Taken hostage.

Doron Steinbreacher, 30, remains a hostage held by Hamas who released a video of her sitting alongside two younger women held a captive with her for the entire four months. Her mother in an interview initially felt relieved to see her daughter alive, yet seeing her condition, it was devastating; gaunt and pale. Hostages are known to have been starved, little water, no medicine, in unsanitary conditions.

From hostages that had been released in a prisoner exchange that took place in November, it is well known that the young women are repeatedly raped. They are given clothing like lingerie to wear. They are given Arab names; their identities are stolen, they have become violently-abused concubines.

One young hostage released in November, 21-year-old Maya Regev, informed a group of UN ambassadors the conditions in which she existed in Gaza. She had her clothing ripped from her, her earrings torn from her ears, was given a new name. For laughs they would occasionally beat her over her injured foot and as she writhed in pain, they appeared entertained.

Of the 750 residents of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, sixty-two were murdered. Eighteen of the residents were taken hostage. It had taken the Israel Defense Forces close to three days to finally ensure that all of the terrorist were cleared out of Kfar Aza.