In one day, Hamas militants massacred, tortured, and abducted residents of a kibbutz, leaving their homes charred and their community in ruins.
At 6:31 a.m. on Saturday, October 7th, Gal Cohen’s morning run was interrupted by a flurry of rockets. Cohen, who lived in Kibbutz Be’eri, barely three miles from Israel’s border with Gaza, was used to the projectiles, and to the sound of their midair interceptions by Israel’s missile-defense system. But this barrage was unusually loud and intense. His dog, running beside him, went wild. Cohen, who is fifty-eight, bald, and soft-spoken, returned home and went to pick up his daughter—who also lived in the kibbutz and who, his wife had told him, was frantic. On the way over, Cohen spotted two men on a motorcycle, carrying rifles. They wore camouflage uniforms and “those green Hamas bandannas,” Cohen told me this week. Ducking his head out of view, he spoke to the kibbutz’s chief security officer, Arik Kraunik, by phone to report what he’d seen.
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