The stench of death still pervades Kfar Aza, an Israeli kibbutz on the periphery of the blockaded Gaza Strip. The street closest to the barbed wire border fence, just 50m away from the three-mile (5km) buffer zone that separates the territories, previously housed the kibbutz’s volunteers. These young adults lived in around 40 small homes designed for single occupancy, staying for a few months at a time to explore the socialist and environmental principles typical of a kibbutz lifestyle.
As there are several communal bomb shelters in the vicinity, the houses were not designed with safe rooms in which to wait out rocket attacks. Even if they were, the occupants would not have escaped Kfar Aza’s fate on 7 October, when Hamas burst out of its cage.
