Update (Day 984) Swords of Iron “Trauma And The Path To Healing”

Today I’m near Kibbutz Re’im, at the place where the Nova music festival happened—the place of the massacre. This is one of those turning points in our history.

It feels like time has passed so quickly. October 7, 2023, already feels like a while ago, but I remember coming here. I remember seeing the aftermath of the violence—the merciless violence. Bodies were everywhere. Cars were burned and abandoned. The whole area carried the weight of what had happened.

Now they have reconstructed part of the site so people can understand what took place. You can see where the bar stood, where the dance floor was, where the main stage was, where people ran, where they tried to hide, and where so many were murdered.

More and more stories continue to be found and told: Jenny Carmeli, Noa, Gili, Avraham, Noam the DJ, and so many others. Beautiful lives. Beautiful people. Many of them were not only trying to survive; they were trying to save others. They were terrified, but they still risked everything to help someone else. And many of them paid with their lives.

I came after it happened, when the bodies were still here. I was called up for reserve duty, which has now continued for nearly a thousand days. And I cannot forget what I saw.

At around 9:05 in the morning, terrorists reached the bar area. They fired indiscriminately into the crowd, shouting and giving orders. Some came on foot, others in vehicles. They fired at close range at anyone still inside. This was not a battle. This was a massacre.

Every free and democratic society in the world needs to understand: if these terrorists had their way, they would do the same to your sons and daughters. Israel is on the front line of this barbaric ideology, facing it head-on. You may be farther away, but the threat is the same.

Imagine your home. Your family. Your children. Imagine having to run as fast as you can just to stay alive. You would not be spared.

That is why it is so important for the free peoples of the world to come together—Jews, Christians, and all people of conscience—and say: enough is enough.

Standing for freedom does not mean hating anyone. It means defending life. It means protecting our families. It means refusing to let barbarism win.

When one is on the battlefield, the only thought is towards completing the mission, defending the homeland and those you love, not even where or when will we sleep afterwards.

There are those of us who aren’t able to sleep even after the mission is over, because of all the trauma we’ve been through, PTSD and such.

Because of which I’m happy that we have a rehabilitation program in place to help guys like this; just like with the hostages, neither on the battlefield nor afterwards will anyone be “left behind”.

And it’s great that we can all participate in this, because these are our people, these are our family.