MIDDLE EAST CRISIS
Israeli kibbutz’s children of peace have dreams shattered by Hamas
One conviction that has stayed constant is disapproval of Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister
Nirit Hunwald, a nurse, stands amid the destruction left at Kibbutz Be’eri after the attack launched by Hamas on October 7
ALEXI J. ROSENFELD/GETTY IMAGES
Ben Sochman was raised in Kibbutz Be’eri as a flower child, singing Hair: The Musical and believing in peace with the Palestinians. He was on the phone with his mother, Tami, listening in as Hamas gunmen ordered her to hand over her jewellery, before they shot her dead.
“I’m asking myself how miserable a man needs to be in order to come here and do what he did,” Sochman said. “What it means is that there will not be peace. And peace was something that I was [brought up] on.”
One of the greatest ironies of Hamas’s October 7 attacks is that they took place in a string of Israeli communities known for their peacenik credentials. The horrors of that day have left their commitment
