Amid the devastation of Kibbutz Be’eri, Israel keeps pulling bodies from the rubble

Three more bodies were pulled out of Be’eri on Wednesday, IDF officials in the kibbutz told The Times of Israel, bringing the verified death toll from the Hamas massacre on Saturday in the 1,200-strong community to 110.

Many more were taken into the Gaza Strip as hostages, including 85-year-old Yaffa Adar, last seen being driven off on a golf cart, surrounded by armed terrorists.

Standing in a walkway in the middle of the kibbutz on Wednesday evening, Major General Itai Veruv recalled rushing there to fight alongside civilians and soldiers he collected along the way.

“People from the kibbutz, and some that came here to the kibbutz, in single and small groups, volunteered and organized forces, hour by hour, to try to clean this kibbutz,” recalled Veruv, commander of the Depth Corps and the IDF Military Colleges.

“We lost a lot of people here, citizens of the kibbutz and a lot of security forces,” he said, the sun setting behind the skeletons of the kibbutz homes.

Behind Veruv, concrete and rebar cover the ground below the blasted-out remains of a house. The possessions of the family that lived there until Saturday add splashes of color to the gray slabs.

In a two-story house, 40 civilians were held hostage by around 20 terrorists.

Be’eri, one of the Israel’s most successful and iconic kibbutzim, has become a symbol of the Hamas attack on Israel, which left over a thousand Israelis dead.

“Just like Auschwitz is the symbol of the Holocaust,” said Major Doron Spielman, “Be’eri will be the symbol of this pogrom.”

It is as if all the cruel monstrosities ever perpetrated by man throughout history were concentrated into one morning in one small town.

“We found bomb shelters full of young people pushed inside, and with hand grenades they killed them,” said Veruv.

“There were infants and young people here who were mutilated,” Spielman recalled. “Heads, arms, limbs being cut off. People being sliced open, and the knife left there in front of their parents.”

It is as if all the cruel monstrosities ever perpetrated by man throughout history were concentrated into one morning in one small town.

Homes were torched with families huddled inside.

Spielman said it will take weeks before Israel knows exactly how many were murdered here.

“You have to piece together body parts,” he explained. “You find limbs, you find bodies, it’s hard to know.”

Israel has found 103 terrorists dead in the kibbutz so far, but more are hidden beneath the wreckage.

Further up the path, one of them lies wrapped in a white bag. “Terrorist” is scrawled across the top in red.

The communal center of the kibbutz is silent, almost peaceful, except for the occasional hint of the horror that occurred only days before. A white Honda SUV sits in the parking lot, its windows shot out. The door is still open from the driver’s attempts to flee.

A small girl’s sandal, just one, rests upside down on the stones. Drops of blood on a walkway lead to the kibbutz auditorium.

A kindergarten in the heart of the kibbutz still has crayons on the low tables, and paper cutouts of balloons on the wall. “Shana Tova” — happy new year — exclaims a red sign next to the classroom rules of order.

The kiddie desks are covered with pistachio shells, an indication that terrorists rested in this room during the hours-long cavalcade of horrors. Behind the desks, twenty drawers bear the names of the children in the class — Lia, Maya, Noam, Niri, Niv, Omri. Some of these children were likely hacked apart by the same men who sat in their seats to enjoy a snack after the savagery.

Another body of a terrorist lies in the road nearby. A boot sticks out of the white bag, as blood seeps out of the other side into a pool.

The entrance to the kibbutz is a hive of activity. The yellow security gate is permanently open, and in front of it sits the burnt-out remains of the car two terrorists attacked to gain access after its driver opened the gate.

A line of young active duty infantrymen stride by with purpose. Two carry FN MAG machine guns, and another soldier lugs missiles on his back.

Hulking Merkava tanks belch smoke as they move through the sandy field next to the kibbutz gate. Soldiers wait in line for meat and rice prepared by ultra-Orthodox volunteers. They occasionally scatter when warnings of incoming mortars sound over the radio, then reassemble with the easy humor that is a hallmark of combat soldiers.

Oblivious of the horrors carried out there only days earlier, chickens and turkeys squabble noisily as they strut about the kibbutz perimeter.

Volunteers from the Zaka search and rescue organization prepare to leave for the night, after the spending their fourth consecutive day locating bodies and preparing them to be moved.

“Yesterday,” said Eli Hazan, a Zaka volunteer originally from Rhode Island, “we saw a list taped to the door of the safe room in the house. I guess one of the parents made it, a list things to prepare. Toothbrush, sandwiches, all kinds of stuff. And on the bottom it said a hug from Imma [mom]. And there was blood all over that piece of  paper.”

The day after the massacre, he took part in the grim task of removing the bodies of the victims from the music festival nearby.

He also found around 40 bodies of Hamas terrorists in the field.

“They were dressed in tactical clothing, most of them had knives in their vests,” he recounted. “They all had guns, some had grenades, and a few had shoulder missiles.”

While Israel tries to make sense of the atrocities, Veruv is focused on the impending ground invasion.

“We will do it,” says the grizzled general. “We don’t have a choice.”