Three years ago, around 6,000 Arabs from Gaza invaded Israel and butchered families, children, elderly folks— anyone in sight, even pets. Around 5,000 rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza during this day. The goal was complete annihilation.
1,200 people in Israel were slaughtered on October 7. Of them, 73 were children, 2 were babies. 3,400 people survived with injuries, 90% of which were gunshot wounds. (Israel has not reported what percentage of the injured were children.)
251 people were taken back to Gaza as hostages and slaves. 36 of them were children.
168 tortured souls returned alive, 8 rescued and the rest traded in exchange for convicted terorrists. Only 34 children were returned alive. Both Bibas children, Ariel, 4 years old, and his baby brother Kfir, 9 months old, were choked to death by Palestinian hands.
Some families were annihilated in full on October 7, parents mudered along with their children. The Kedem-Siman Tov family and the Kutz family are gone. Other families had one family member remaining to live with the torture of absolute loss. 359 children lost at least one parent that day. 30 children were left as orphans.
The level of brutality and violence was unspeakable. Torture and sadism beyond normal comprehension. The burnings; the mutilated limbs; the rapes. The Arabs even forced Jewish children to perform unspeakable incestuous acts.
Certain people around the world watched all this unfold and decided that they hated Jews so much that they started celebrating the horrors. Antisemitism skyrocketed around the world after that day.
But Israel remained strong.
It took Israel 20 days to make entry into Gaza with a ground offensive. The “free Palestine” movement started the disinformation campaign that Israel was committing a “genocide” in Gaza on October 13—a full 14 days before the IDF even entered Gaza. They ignored the Arabs’ intent of Genocide that started the fighting in the first place.
Israel fought in Gaza to bring back the hostages and to destroy the terrorist infestation for 713 days. 470 Israeli soldiers laid down their lives in Gaza for the survival of their people, many of those lives lost due to the IDF’s overly-cautious urban warfare tactics that favored saving enemy civilians in Gaza. 612 Israeli children lost a father serving in Gaza.
Gaza was cleared of much of the evil that had infested it, albeit not in full. For the past year, not a single rocket has been fired out of Gaza into Israel.
4,000 of the 6,000 Palestinian invaders have been brought to justice. Israel vows to find the remaining 2,000.
Never forget. Never forgive.
Am Yisrael chai.