baseNIR OZ, Israel — Evil came at the crack of dawn, at 6:29 a.m. The Nukhba — elite Hamas terrorists — stayed for seven unopposed hours, killing, raping and kidnapping.For every kidnapped Israeli brought back to Hamas, a terrorist received a cash reward and an apartment from Hamas. (It's a safe bet most of those apartments are now rubble, as Israel has vowed to wipe Hamas out.)Shlomo Margalit, who helped found the Nir Oz kibbutz in 1957, said at first he thought the alarms going off were just run-of-the-mill, part of the routine living only two kilometres from the Gaza border."We realized (this time) it's a different story. At 6:45 a.m. we hear Arabic shouting. We realized something was happening. We thought, okay, one group, five people, they infiltrated. The army would come in 15 minutes to fix it."As Margalit spoke, the constant sound of artillery could be heard as shells were fired into Gaza..He said the longstanding plan was for a local security response group to hold off any terror attacks until the Israeli Defence Forces arrived in 15 minutes."The last security guy was killed about 9 a.m., still no army," Margalit said.He said looking at What'sApp showed the terrible toll that was being taken across southern Israel as 5,500 Hamas terrorists flooded in from the Gaza Strip..The above family was all slain, the parents by gunfire through the door, with the three children choking to death in a safety room after Hamas set their home on fire.Margalit said it wasn't until 7 p.m. the true toll became clear.Out of a population of 400, 121 people were killed, captured or raped. Sixty percent of the buildings were burned.He said the kibbutz was the only place that "was totally captured by Hamas. They ruled here for about seven hours. Towards two in the afternoon, they left. Forty minutes after they left, help arrived," Margalit told the Western Standard as we toured what was left of his kibbutz."It's the only place not one military bullet was shot," he said, adding he has lost faith in the IDF.."We built everything we needed here. We were happy. It was 95% paradise and 5% hell," Margalit said."There were rocket attacks where we had to go into shelters for 10 minutes, then we went back to our lives.".Nir Oz was the kibbutz where the Bibas famioy was kidnapped. Their story is one of horror.Before Oct. 7, the Bigas were a happy family — 34-year-old Yarden, his wife, Shiri, 32 and their children Ariel, four and nine-month-old Kfir.All four were kidnapped into Israel and became a focus point of the hostage crisis.Hamas terrorists — high on captagon, a synthetic stimulant combining amphetamine and theophylline — murdered Shiri's parents before leaving.They then claimed the children had been killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza. But the truth was almost unbearable.."The Bilbas children were murdered by Hamas terrorists using their bare hands and mutilated the bodies to look like an airstrike," Lt.-Col. Shesani Nadav told the Western Standard in an exclusive media briefing. The gruesome findings came after an autopsy.On February 1, 2005, Hamas released Yarden, and nineteen days later they released what they said were the bodies of Shiri and the children.But DNA testing showed the body was not that of Shiri. Hamas released the proper body the next day.For Yarden, he lost his entire family on Oct. 7, 2023, when evil came to Nir Oz..Margalit, for now, wants to come back to Nir Oz.Only five people now live in the kibbutz now, other workers drive in for the day."I have devoted my live to this place. of course I want to come back, but the noise has to stop," as the nearby artillery boomed again.."But I am 87, and my wife isn't so sure. And you know what they say..." Margalit said.I finish his sentence for him."Happy wife, happy life," I said.Margalit smiles and shuffles back to his kibbutz..Naylor and the other media had their trip to Israel sponsored by the Exigent foundation, dedicated to fostering knowledge regarding the threat posed by extremism to liberal, western democracies.
