TEL AVIV — Call it a small spark of light in the wake of one of the darkest days in this country’s history.
On Oct. 7, Hamas militants carried out a rampage across southern Israel, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of civilians near the border of Gaza.
One of the worst massacres came at the site of the now-notorious Nova music festival, which occurred in a forest near the community of Reim, close by the border with the Palestinian enclave. The festivalgoers had gathered in the sand with tents and a makeshift bar to listen to music.
This week, the Tel Aviv Expo is hosting a new exhibition that honors the memory of those lost during the massacre at the festival.
“Thousands of radiant souls came together for a celebration of unconditional love and the spreading of light,” a poster at the entrance to the exhibit says. “In one moment the celebratory atmosphere was shattered. The Angel of Death swooped down.”
The Israeli offensive to avenge Oct. 7 continues to rage in the Gaza enclave, and there are mounting fears that the war could spread across the region, But attendees say the exhibition is one way that Israel is now beginning to process the events of Oct. 7, not to move on but to mourn and come to terms with a world turned upside down.
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And it’s all happening in real-time, as victims are still being identified and hostages — including many who came to Reim to enjoy a concert — remain separated from their loved ones.
The display has brought together many relics from the site, to recreate the actual concert site again, this time indoors in a large hall at the Expo. The tents used by the victims, their shoes, the bar, and burned cars — all can be seen and provide a moment for reflection and introspection.
Organizers have left the room dark, as a haze of artificial smoke billows around. Visitors grapple with their senses as pulsating music mixes with the remake of the massacre site, as well as screens commemorating the dead and those taken hostage by Hamas. Some of those festival goers are still captives inside Gaza, their fate and future uncertain more than 75 days after the attack.
In the weeks after Oct. 7, the killing fields around Reim and the festival site were still full of all the vehicles the people had tried to flee in. Many of those vehicles got stuck in a field nearby, others were filled with bullet holes and burned after being attacked by Hamas fighters.
Armored bus stops, where people ran for shelter, were turned into death traps as militants chucked grenades into them.
Burying the cars, fixing the signs
This reporter saw many of these areas on Oct. 16, nine days after the massacre, driving along the road and walking the fields where the vehicles were found. The festival site was then still being cleaned and bodies identified.
Today many of the cars have been towed to an area along a road leading to Netivot. The Israeli police keep watch over the site where hundreds of vehicles, some burned, remain. Israel will bury some of the vehicles because they have human remains in them
This is another manifestation of the national need to cope. Burial of vehicles, an unprecedented step, provides finality to the investigation into the massacre.
On border roads near Gaza, some of the signs have also been repaired. For instance, the road from the Erez crossing leading to Ashkelon, a major thoroughfare that connects several border communities attacked on Oct. 7, now has new signage along the roadway. The repaired signs sit next to roads that are still damaged from tank treads, evidence of the battles on these roads that unfolded less than three months ago.
In the city of Ashkelon, which has been targeted by thousands of Hamas missiles and drones, the 40,000 residents have been told that school schedules will return to normal and other emergency measures taken during the war will now begin a return to normal as well.
As if to send a message to the city, Hamas targeted it with rockets again on December 21, after a day and a half in which the Palestinian group that Israel, the U.S. and many Western nations have called a terrorist organization, had not launched a large barrage of rockets at Israel.
Israeli commanders say Hamas is losing ground in its Gaza stronghold, but it still has rockets that can threaten cities in southern and central Israel.
Ashkelon is one example of a city trying to return to normal. However, for dozens of small communities along the Gaza border and the city of Sderot, evacuation orders still exist and residents cannot return.
In addition, the sound of fighting and bombing can be heard in Sderot and most border communities. Smoke rises from the fighting.
Israel has invested a budget in rehabilitating these communities, reinforcing their defenses and building new safe rooms from rocket fire, but all of this will take time.
For now, tens of thousands of residents of these areas mostly remain in limbo, living in hotels where the state has housed them temporarily.