, updated
When thousands of Hamas terrorists poured through the Gaza fence on October 7, the first Israelis they came across were the Kibbutzniks.
These residents of small, self-sufficient communities dotted along the boundary line were among the most sympathetic to the Palestinian cause in the country.
They would regularly run workshops to encourage building bridges with their neighbours, believing the two peoples must learn to live in harmony.
Some would fly ‘balloons of peace’ containing messages and sweets over the fence, others would send money to friends they had made on the other side and drive their sick children from the border to Israeli hospitals. They were known affectionately as the Peaceniks.
But, living just a few hundred metres from Gaza, they were also the most vulnerable that day – and, in the ultimate betrayal, the terrorists wasted no time slaughtering them in their hundreds.