Yitzhak ben Moshe, Editor/Reporter, New Mexico  

On 7 October, I was 7,179 miles from the Nova Music Festival. 

I was living my evening in blissful ignorance until I was told that a relative of mine, Ilan Weiss, was murdered by Hamas and his body dragged into Gaza.

In the following days, like many Jews across the world, I watched the news, watched videos on social media, and looked for answers to questions I hadn’t yet formed. Like so many others, I was trying to make sense out of senseless acts of violence. 

There were no answers.

Fast-forward to Monday, 26 February, and I still cannot make sense of the hate embodied by Hamas. I cannot understand how anyone can see invasion, murder, or sexual assault as a way forward or the groundwork for “freedom.”

To help those in the diaspora understand this event, specifically the Jewish community in Las Cruces, New Mexico, Lt Colonel Yaron Bouskila of the Israeli Defense Force spoke, providing a first-hand account of the events of 7 October 2023 to the Jewish Community. The Alevy Chabad Jewish Center hosted the event.

During his talk at Chabad, Lt Colonel Yaron Bouskila spoke of horrors on the ground. He told of a short drive taking almost two hours because of the bodies and vehicles covering the road. He spoke of the homes of those murdered by the Hamas. 

I will not take away from his first first-hand message that shares what he saw and what we’ve seen on the news. 

Please, watch the video, or download the audio.

We apologize, as there was interference with microphone frequencies while recording the video/audio of this presentation. We’ve done our best to recover the whole audio. The beginning, with the Rabbi, is a bit loud. For the remainder, we recommend wearing headphones if possible.

Again, we apologize for the inconvenience. We have identified the issue and will not have this problem in the future.

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