There are birds here
I look around me, at the Nova Festival's camping area. It was not long ago, like the devil's design, there were bags, picnic mats, abandoned camping rucksacks, and empty tents were strewn about here, in chaotic, blood-freezing disorder.
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And now, after being cleaned, the remnants of the slaughtered are slowly disappearing, so much so that one needs to search after them. Here, between the trees, a burnt license plate, and there, a scorched patch of earth and a forsaken outdoor coffee pot, and charred tree trunks, water bottles lying at their feet, still marked by the last touch of lips.
Besides that, everything is now still. And peaceful. A far-off chirp can be heard. God, there are birds here. And yet, among this strip of nature that took its toll and is now regaining its breath, the cries of those fighting for their lives can be heard, those who were killed and those who survived. Those running toward salvation or toward a bullet in their backs. Pleading, saying goodbye; 364 of our people, the voice of the angels of Re’im.
Major R. and Captain T., two fighter pilots who, in dozens of sorties over Gaza and Lebanon, and who knows where else, took a break to come here, the place where each of them lost a brother. They said that they don’t hear anything other than the sounds of the woods.
And in a moment, while strolling under the eucalyptus trees and on the ground that will harden to the touch of our feet, Captain T, who is visiting this place for the first time, will say that he is also trying to not think or imagine beyond the pastoral scene at the site.
"Why do I need to think about the horrors my older brother went through,” he asked quietly, “I’m sure that he was focused and sharp, and managed the event. He wasn’t afraid and he tried to help his friends. I prefer remembering his smile. That’s how I would rather remember him."
Booms of reconciliation
There is no choice but to begin this story with its end. With its message. This is also how the conversation with them started.
Here we have two young fighter pilots that paid a heavy price, lost that which is most dear, as is the case with so many others in our country; and despite this, they have been leaving their pain on the ground, and taking off to conduct additional sorties around the clock. North, south, west. Many dozens of flights. Each one of them has dropped about one hundred tons. “Things we haven’t encountered till now, 360-degree fighting,” they describe it.
Major R., 32 years old, an F-16 pilot from central Israel, married and father of two, Master’s student; and Captain T., 25 years old, F-15 pilot from the Gederot Regional Council. “So, it’s not about commemorating,” R. clarifies. “And we can’t be sure if there’s a story of bravery. We have our own touching stories. And sad stories, not that I’m making any comparisons, we might have a few more of our own. But yes, there is a message here.”
This is why he wanted to be interviewed. It was his request, as soon as he finished with his brother’s “shloshim” (thirty – the month of mourning after a loved one’s burial).
On October 7, with a personal and national tragedy, Hamas revived the sense of mutual responsibility within Israeli society. They (Hamas) have extended our existence in this country for at least another 75 years.
“October 7 dusted off long-dormant insights,” Major R. said, “The first being where I want to raise my children. Here, in Israel, it offers the greatest chance of fulfillment, prosperity, and happiness, because you see what is happening outside of Israel. And the second, we discovered that we are together in this story, people from the entire Israeli society. And now, we face an even greater challenge: remaining united, preserving the bond discovered between us these past few months, after the war, as well. That’s the reason I came here.”
Both pilots agree on this matter. Captain T.'s message is similar. “It doesn’t matter how hard it was or will be, we have no choice but to be united. Too much room was given to unimportant things. The events of October 7 made it very clear that we have nowhere else, no other country. For me, this idea and my brother’s image helped me collect myself after the shiva and drive to my flight squadron.”
The two pilots said these words at the very same time that we were sitting on wooden chairs, behind the camping facility, where their brothers’ blood lays. And now, after releasing booms of reconciliation, they seem ready to tell their story.
Connection in Dubai
We drove in Captain T.’s car, along Re’im’s routes of escape and carnage. In the passenger seat, at the front of the car, sat Major R. It was a ground mission this time.
T.’s Waze guided our drive, to the coordinates where the last sign of life was received from his brother’s friends. It was around 10:50 in the morning. There were three of them in the car when they tried to flee. At this point, the brother, A., 29, the eldest of the three brothers, was already injured, and one of his friends was driving in his stead.
Earlier, around 9:50, was the last time their parents heard his voice. “My brother sounded at peace, calm,” T. describes, “but just before the call disconnected, they heard him saying ‘There’s a heavy machine gun here.’”
We turned onto the “Nof Habsor” road, along a short sandy incline, and then, we pulled the brakes. We exited the car, and moved forward about 20 meters. Here, T. pointed out, was where their car stood. “From what we know, they hid underneath the car and tried to play dead.”
On the ground, where the tragedy took place, in the acacia tree grove, lies what looks like a broken, white and light-blue pop-up tent. Major R. lifted it, looked at it, and threw it.
When his brother breathed his last breaths, Captain T. was on a plane on the way to Israel. The October 7 massacre, the 6:30 am rockets, caught him making a connection in Dubai, after spending two weeks in Thailand with his girlfriend. Beaches, shakes, elephants, the life of a king, six-course dinners, he recounted. “We call this ‘a vacation for potential’, to come back with renewed strength,” he described.
On the plane, when he understood that chaos had erupted in Israel, he bought a mobile data package. When, in the middle of it all, he comprehends that his brother is at that party. “But at that time, I worried less about him,” T. clarified. “My brother is one of those people that can handle himself. He was in a commando unit, so it’s good that he is there. He’ll take care of his friends. And I began dealing with issues related to my squadron.”
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T. (left) with his murdered brother (right) 'One that can handle himself'
(Photo: Family album)
When he landed, after 11:00 in the morning, his father came to pick him up, with his bag ready for squadron duty. “Only then did I notice the worry in my father’s voice," he told us, and then continued to describe how he arrived at the base and how "I tried to put this thing about my brother aside to be able to help where I could."
And then, at a quarter to four in the afternoon, on the same day, a phone call from dad. Captain T. had no idea that something bad had happened. Rather, the opposite. “I said, ‘Ho, finally,” he recollected, “here’s the call where my dad says that my brother is OK, that he made contact. You see, he can’t be harmed, he’s my big brother.”
Nothing good would e said in that conversation. Later, T. found out that in the afternoon hours a close friend of the family had driven out to the site of the disaster in Re’im. While encountering terrorists, he managed to reach the vehicle, where he found the three no longer alive.
"That is a moment that I can’t describe in words. I pick up the phone in anticipation and hear my father’s broken voice trying to sound strong. He says that A. was killed. It was a moment when you feel your heart has actually skipped a beat. I take a few deep breaths, and then feel as if my brother is grabbing my shoulder, picking me up, and saying, ‘straighten up’. Then I go and tell my commanders. They hug me, tell me that ‘your job is to care for your family. Go hug your parents,’" he said.
Afterward, near the place where the last sign of life was received, there are valleys of sorts. Captain T. pointed in that direction. "I’m sure there were people that lied over there and were saved," he said. He then added that coming here today completes the picture, in a way. "In retrospect, they were surrounded."
Beforehand, when he spoke of the way his brother seemed to pick him up and straighten him out, Captain T. had smiled. An impossible smile that appeared to contradict the pain in his honey-colored eyes. Are you trying to smile, I asked. "No" he replied. "That’s how we grew up, even if sounds cliché." His big brother, A., had the same smile. Teethy, and powerful. The kind that would stay on his face after his death, when the time came to say goodbye to him at the hospital, against a backdrop of a terrible reality. A backdrop of monsters that attack revelers at a party with AK-47s and RPG grenade launchers.
Normandy style
Shortly, before noon, we passed through the automobile hell next to Moshav Tkuma. There, piled high, were charred, bleeding metal and tin skeletons that were brought over from the Gaza border towns and from Nova. One thousand vehicles, one of the yard’s supervisors estimated. Probably amongst them is the white Kia that belonged to G., Major R.’s brother. Its license plate ended with the numbers 406. He remembers because he searched for it for hours, hoping to find a clue as to the fate of his younger brother, aged 26.
When the sirens began, Major R., who had lived until recently at the Hazerim air base, picked up his baby in the baby-carrying basket and his first born, and carefully, so that they wouldn’t wake, dragged them to the security room. He opened WhatsApp, saw a message from his brother, that he was at a party near Kibbutz Re’im, and for him not to worry. “I’m writing on WhatsApp, because based on the large number of sirens, it’s Hamas,” R. described, “Let him get out quickly so that they won’t catch him in an RPG ambush. That’s what went through my head at the time.”
From there, Major R. continued to his flight squadron at Hazerim. One of the first to arrive and embark on an offensive mission without having any clue about what was really going on in the Gaza border towns. “From my perspective,” he said, “another round was starting. I didn’t know at the time to define it as war.”
Before he took off, another WhatsApp to his brother. “So, have you begun driving away from there?” he wrote him, and didn’t receive a response. “I realize that he hadn’t made contact for quite some time but told myself a story that his phone had broken, that there was no reception, that there was no battery, all sorts of stuff. He’d probably show up at any minute.”
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Major R. and Captain T. navigate to the point where the last sign of life was received from R.'s brother
(Photo: Private album)
When Major R. lands, to a flood of heart-stopping messages, messages that tell him that there has been no sign from his brother, he opened a WhatsApp group with the rest of his siblings, without his parents. “We begin handling the incident. My sister goes to Barzilai (hospital), and I go to Soroka (hospital). I changed to dress fatigues and took a gun.”
Methodically, the fighter pilot walked between the beds of the wounded and scanned the faces of the casualties. One after another, he told me, gun shot wounds, revelers who arrive without shirts. “Graphic scenes, the kind you see a lot on Netflix,” he described. “At the time, the news reported only 15 deaths, so the statistics were in my favor. However, at Soroka, I begin to understand the scope of the event.”
In between, he received a message from a different brother, that he is on the way to the Gaza border area to search for the missing brother. “I told him: ‘Stop, stop. I’m coming. Wait for me. At least I have a uniform.’ We met at six thirty in the evening at the Re’im medical clinic. We began looking around, searching. G. is a fighter, young, healthy. I assumed that he ran somewhere and would get out under cover of darkness. At 1:00 am, we saw that he hadn’t come out yet, and said ‘we’ll come back at sunrise.’”
Captain R. stops and points behind us, to the Nova camping area where we are sitting. He admired how they had cleaned the site up. “There was a well-funded Hollywood set here,” he said going back to the sights that affronted his eyes when he arrived the morning after. “A pretty big killing field, Normandy style.”
After searching for hours, in which they split up to cover more ground, the car was found, the one in which his brother G., and another friend had been. “It looked bad on the inside. Somebody had been shot in the car. We understood that one of the car’s passengers had been murdered in it,” Major R. described.
In the following days, the four siblings will gather at their parent’s house, waiting till Friday, when the message will come. “It was a truly difficult week. The shiva was child’s play when compared to this week,” he described. “You don’t know any longer what you prefer, that they will notify us and we’ll be done with it, or that they will tell us that he’s among the kidnapped.”
During this period of time, he will continue to carry out sorties in Gaza. Three or four flights. "The flights were more for myself. I felt that was the place where I have some sort of routine that gives me energy to cope. I was asked if I thought that I was being responsible for flying. I felt that yes, that I was able to separate my personal story from my job."
And then, on Wednesday, the body of the friend who was with G. in the car was identified. “From there,” R. said, “I already understood that I want to be at my parent’s side, because it was coming very soon.” And then, on Friday evening, when the notice was being given, it was as if they were closing out all hope.”
After all that, R. told us about his brother who was crazy about soccer, just like him, and it worked out that he was a fan of Maccabi Tel Aviv. They had spent days together on the PlayStation®. His brother was the youngest among five siblings, and R. felt as if he had raised him. “Our baby,” he said. Our baby.
Without inscriptions on the bombs
Every few minutes, as if to remind us of where we were, there’s some kind of explosion. R.’s and T.’s friends are working hard. Coloring the cracked-blue Gazan skies with torches of black smoke.
It takes about seven minutes to fly to Gaza from the base. Along the way, you pass over the Gaza border towns. I asked them what insights they have about the fighting from their perspective, that we don’t see. "To me, it actually seems that we are in a quieter place, pastoral,” Captain T. says, “From an altitude of 20-30 thousand feet, even the strongest explosions, such as releasing 4 tons, don’t seem that big.”
Major R: "During Operation Protective Edge, one of my brothers fought in Gaza. After the war he said that the thing most engraved in his memory were the Air Force attacks. You feel the ground shaking. Every time I open the cameras to see if the bombs hit their targets, I remember how my brother experienced the attacks."
Imminently, both of them will say that when the plane’s canopy closes, your feelings evaporate, your thoughts disconnect, and the only thing you see is the mission. No intrusions, nothing. “Like magic, of sorts.” Major R. will add.
One is allowed to think that it's close to being not human. Do you peek down on the way, to the area where our, their catastrophe had occurred?
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At the Nova Festival site 'You fathom just how exposed they were. There was nowhere to run'
(Photo: Gadi Cabello)
"We fly too fast for distractions," said R. "You can’t text and drive. It would be irresponsible towards the person flying with me, towards my formation, towards the citizens of Israel. In the end, you drop two to four tons of armaments from your plane, and you don’t want to hit anything that you didn’t intend to hit."
T.: "From the moment the canopy closes, there is no room for the feelings you have on the ground. The loss, the pain. If I know that those kinds of feelings are following me into the cockpit, I won’t take off. My brother is beside me at any given moment. He is always here, except in the air. He also knows when to step aside."
R.: "You don’t give room to yourself as an individual. There is no place for what you have experienced. You are doing something for which the price of making a mistake is too great.”
It isn’t completely comprehensible, October 7 has become personal for all of us, assuredly for you. Nearly every shell fired by the IDF is dedicated to someone.
“I’ve been asked many times whether I feel a sense of vengeance when I attack,” said R., “Before I was drafted, I was a soccer player. Every time I felt like tearing the other team apart because I was irritated, because somebody had pulled my shirt, had taken me out of my zone, it caused me to be worse and reduced the chances that my team would win. If emotions were to drive me, I would make mistakes that would cause me to hold my head."
"It isn’t a place for revenge. If I really want to win, I have to do so by being level-headed, sharp, and precise. And not get upset, angry, or seek revenge. And no one is going to give me back my brother," he added.
T.: "I concur. What happened, happened. You don’t operate from a sense of wanting to bring them back, because that would hinder the execution of the mission."
Nothing is written on your bombs?
"If something is written, we didn’t write it.” Major R. responded, "Friends of my brother made stickers with my brother’s picture, that they put on houses in Gaza. I told them, ‘Guys, worry about protecting yourselves.’"
When do pilots let loose?
"When I put the flying aside, when I’m at home, alone, with my girlfriend, I allow myself to express feelings," T. said.
R.: "In places where I’m alone, thoughts float up. The drives from home to the base, those are the moments where I’m most alone with myself. I process events, think, rewind. Sometimes, when I see my son immersed in a game, it reminds of my brother. I have sorts of déjà vu from our childhood."
Taking in air again
In a moment, we will have departed the place where the laws of man and nature are inverted. Here, under these skies, the skies fell. The earth absorbed the souls of those who walked here.
Major R. turned to Captain T., "I recommend that you have kids. Even in the saddest place, my son will suddenly say some sweet sentence that melts my heart. And you smile despite having just left a funeral."
Both of you, I told them, have a shared fate, in the air and on the ground. Is there something you might want to say to one another? Maybe a piece of advice?
“Not advice, insight.” Major R. turned to Captain T., “I recommend that you have kids. Children are a ray of light that you can’t escape from. Even in the saddest of places, my son will suddenly say some sweet sentence, that melts my heart. And you smile despite having just left a funeral.”
“The first thing my wife and I decided, when my brother was still defined as missing, was that if they declare him murdered, we would move in next to our parents. And indeed, two weeks after October 7, the movers came. We rented an apartment that is a ten-minute walk from my parents. We force them to play with the grandkids. There’s nothing to do for it.”
And then, somehow, while another boom is heard over the horizon, and the chirping of birds, we arrived back where we started. You have craters in your hearts and are leaving craters in Gaza, I say to them, how do we finish with hope?
“Hope is for the day after,” Captain T. said, “I wait for it. For the day we can worry about the country, its citizens, when we’ll take in air again.”
“On October 7, at too heavy a price and by way of personal and national tragedy, Hamas revived the sense of mutual responsibility within Israeli society. Hamas has extended our existence in this country for at least another 75 years. On October 6 I probably wouldn’t have signed my name to this statement. It restored faith in the people.”
And our neighbors?
R’: “Let’s start by being at peace with ourselves.”
- Translated by Oren Bar-Ner