Since the Hamas attack of October 7, tours of the South have become a regular feature.
People from all walks of life and corners of the globe have been paying substantial sums – more than $100 a head, in some cases – to visit the area in order to “bear witness” to the atrocities that took place there.
But is this right? Should just anyone who wishes to see what happened be able to go, provided they have the wherewithal to cough up the not-insignificant sum required?
Or should these tours be restricted to certain groups of people, such as journalists, foreign diplomats, politicians, and so on? People whose voices make a qualitative difference.
I’ve been grappling with this issue since receiving an online flyer for a tour a couple of months ago via a group WhatsApp. The tour “highlights” included the so-called “car graveyard,” among other “attractions,” and cost $85 a head. Most surprisingly, it sold out in hours, with people asking if they could tag along in their own cars, so eager were they to join.
The whole thing made me feel rather uncomfortable. Why would anyone pay to see the remains of homes and cars in which men, women, children, and babies had been brutally murdered?
Bearing witness
Some insist that it’s important to see the scenes of carnage and destruction for themselves to help them understand the scale of the atrocities.
However, as details of the attack began to emerge both on and soon after October 7 – including disturbing footage from body cams worn by the terrorists themselves – its scale, brutality, and depravity very quickly became clear.
I also wondered: what is the point of going to “bear witness” if afterward, you don’t take the trouble to share your experience in a meaningful way or if your reach is so small as to be negligible?
I simply couldn’t get my head around this macabre fascination.
Another significant consideration is what happens to the money raised from the tours. One would expect complete transparency in this regard, given their sensitive nature. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be forthcoming in all cases. Such an important factor should be made clear at the outset, with details about how the money will be spent being made available to all interested parties.
Some believe that tours of the South are no different from tours of Auschwitz and other camps in Poland, however, this is misguided. Auschwitz is a memorial site for the victims of the Holocaust, which occurred some 80 years ago, whereas the communities in which the attacks took place on October 7 were and remain people’s homes. The fact that most residents haven’t yet returned to live there is irrelevant.
Further, although October 7 seems like a lifetime ago, we have only just passed the four-month mark since that horrific day. Accordingly, some of the sites may still contain evidence that might be pertinent to any future investigations. Trampling over it in this way could be harmful.
Ultimately, it should be the residents who decide what happens in their homes and I wonder how many of them were consulted before the tours started. It’s hard to believe that, in the immediate aftermath, anyone was in a position even to think about such a thing, let alone consent to it happening and on what terms.
As thousands upon thousands lost friends, family, and their homes in horrific circumstances, I’d imagine that tours of this nature were the least of their concerns – and those who did object may have found it difficult to muster the energy to make their voices heard once the visitors started pouring in.
With these thoughts in mind, last week, for work, I joined a group of high school students from New York on a tour of Kibbutz Kfar Aza where we were made to feel very welcome. They were on a four-day solidarity mission to Israel, which included meeting displaced families, packing supplies for soldiers, and visiting Hostages Square, among other meaningful activities. They visited Kibbutz Kfar Aza on day four.
I was apprehensive about going to the kibbutz (it was the first time I’d ventured down there) and I felt rather uncomfortable about walking around strangers’ homes uninvited.
Once there, however, I formed the distinct impression that the residents wanted people to come and bear witness to their plight.
Many of the destroyed homes bore huge banners with names and pictures of the young people who had lived there, together with details of what had happened to them on October 7. Some had been murdered, while others had been brutally captured and taken into Gaza, where several still remain. Most of the banners were in English, clearly geared toward overseas visitors.
One couple, whose daughter and her partner had been slaughtered by the Hamas terrorists, spoke to our group at length. They even invited us into their daughter’s home, where the murders took place, to witness the devastation firsthand.
For the students in our group, there is no doubt that simply being on that kibbutz and seeing what happened there was very important. It is clear they were profoundly moved and will take their experiences home with them as a tragic but useful tool for dealing with the antisemitism that they will likely face on college campuses in the not-too-distant future. The horrors they witnessed will give them the strength to fight back.
For me, however, I don’t believe that bearing witness to these atrocities gave me a deeper understanding of the situation. In some ways, I couldn’t shake the feeling of being an intruder skulking around someone’s home, and felt the need to be extra careful not to disturb anything, although others clearly didn’t share my concerns. One person, for example, picked up some stray bullets that lay on the ground as he wandered around the kibbutz; a “souvenir,” perhaps to take home with him.
Having joined one of these tours, and seen how they operate, I believe that restrictions should be placed on them, regarding who can join and where they can go. Also, their proceeds must be carefully monitored.
Ultimately, Kibbutz Kfar Aza and the neighboring communities are places where over 1,200 people were slaughtered, thousands more were injured, and countless others had their lives destroyed on October 7.
It is not a tourist attraction – and shouldn’t become one.
The writer is a former lawyer from Manchester, England. She now lives in Israel, where she works at The Jerusalem Post.