The UK Telegraph [unpaywalled] – ‘I saw the Holocaust… so many dead bodies’: To mark the anniversary of the attacks, I traveled to Israel to hear stories of Israelis forced to face an unimaginably dark ordeal….So many questions still unanswered from October 7. I put those queries to scores of Israelis – survivors, soldiers, politicians, bereaved parents, mothers of hostages and just regular people who had to step up for their nation on that dark day.  Some of what follows is horrifying and hard to bear, I know. I am warning you in case you’d rather not read on. But it is important to write it down. We know how important it is because on the BBC news on Thursday, Hamas’s deputy leader told international editor Jeremy Bowen that Hamas didn’t set out to kill any Israeli women or children on October 7. Hamas “resistance fighters” were ordered only to kill “occupation fighters”, although he did concede that “there were certainly personal mistakes” and the fighters, who just popped into family homes on kibbutzim to have a chat and a bite to eat, “may have felt they were in danger”. The accounts told to me by the individuals below, and many others who shared their insights, paint a very different picture. As always, the Devil is in the detail.  ‘There were hundreds of bodies – the smell was incomprehensible.’

Washington Post – ‘The land is full of blood’  [unpaywalled]: An Israeli kibbutz where Oct. 7 never ends A year after the Hamas attacks, Kibbutz Beeri yearns to move on, but the calendar refuses to turn. War has become the background noise of whatever future is coming.

Extraordinary video. The final texts sent by victims on October 7th. Please take 90 seconds to watch it – and remember them.