Ralph Levinson survived in a shelter, but all his neighbors were killed by Hamas terrorists. Today, the Israeli shows visitors around the empty kibbutz and tries to overcome the trauma of October 7, 2023.
Ralph Levinson greets a small group of visitors from Michigan. He stands in the center of Kibbutz Kfar Azza - or rather, among what is left of it. Some buildings are burned, others are riddled with bullet holes. Two years after the Hamas terrorist attack, Kfar Azza is almost completely abandoned, ARD reports.
"There is nothing here anymore"
Levinson grew up in Namibia and came to live in a kibbutz 55 years ago, right next to the border with the Gaza Strip. He remembers with nostalgia the good old life with his neighbors, which is no longer there. “From one hundred percent to zero. There is nothing here anymore - no shop, no clinic, no bus. That's why it's very difficult to live here. And there are no children anymore.“
Shortly after the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023, Levinson began taking groups of visitors around Kfar Azza. The tour is very much like visiting a ghost town, the German public media explains.
Numbers are written on the doors of the half-destroyed houses - This is the number of dead people who were found after the attack on October 7. Levinson shows one of the houses where the entire family was killed.
He himself was very lucky on the day of the attack. Hamas terrorists killed his neighbors, but his house remained untouched. He managed to hide in the shelter, where he stayed for more than a day with his wife.
The fear of returning
The 73-year-old man currently lives in a kibbutz located 25 km from Kfar Azza. Returning is always painful. “I was ready to return, but my wife was not. It is very deserted here. There are whole rows of houses where no one lives. And you keep thinking - and here people were killed, and here too, there was a rape, and in that place the house was washed away by the water. It's quite traumatic to live here, and there are constant explosions - especially at night," Levinson told ARD.
The bombings in the Gaza Strip are constant
And during the tour with the group from Michigan, the bombings from the Gaza Strip, which is only a few kilometers from the kibbutz, are constantly heard. Levinson reassures the group - they have nothing to fear. The bombings are carried out by the Israeli army, he explains.
The Gaza Strip has been under attack for two years now. The area, which was once home to two million Palestinians, is largely in ruins. Tens of thousands have been killed, hundreds of thousands have fled their homes.
"It's a very brutal culture"
Levinson doesn't feel much compassion for his Palestinian neighbors - The memory of what happened on October 7 two years ago is too traumatic.
“I feel some sympathy“, he notes to ARD. But it should not be forgotten that during the terrorist attack there was no one to say – leave the people alone. – They beat, punched, spat on the hostages, and the local Palestinian population made no attempt at all to free the hostages - not one. This is an extremely brutal culture“, he says.
The tour continues by passing through a street where mainly young people lived. Almost all the houses have been destroyed. More than 60 residents of a kibbutz were killed at this place, others were kidnapped.
“It is incredible that some people are capable of doing this to others“
One of the women in the group is in Israel for the first time. The tour of the kibbutz with Levinson shakes her, she is filled with reflections. “It is terrible that so many young people lost their lives here. It is unbelievable that people are capable of doing such a thing to others.“
Through the tours he organizes in the kibbutz, Ralph Levinson tries to overcome his own trauma. The question still remains how the kibbutz will develop in the future, what will happen to Kfar Azza. “Some people want to put monuments in front of all the homes where there were victims, others say – we don't want monuments, we don't want to live in a cemetery. It is all very complicated and very emotional.“