A group of Israeli global social-media influencers, many of whom are dual nationals and speak foreign languages, toured the southern Israeli communities on Thursday that were attacked by Hamas on Oct. 7.
They plan to communicate the horrors in multiple languages.
“I call on the social-media activists who are doing holy work to share the horrors with the world,” said Danny Danon, a Knesset member and a former ambassador to the United Nations, who led the tour. “Don’t skimp on the details.”
The group visited the scene of the music festival, near Kibbutz Re’im, where Palestinian terrorists murdered more than 260 young people on the holiday of Simchat Torah.
They also toured Kibbutz Kfar Aza, one of the communities where civilians of all ages were slaughtered, tortured and burned alive.
The visit ended in the city of Netivot where the group met with Mayor Yehiel Zohar and local residents and heard their stories. They also saw the site of a rocket attack where three members of one household were killed in an instant.
Some of the influencers are also citizens of Russia, Japan, Australia, the United States and elsewhere. They have hundreds of thousands of followers in Israel and around the world. They included Avi Yemini, Marina Kuznetsova, Asif Elkayam, Ella Kinen, Ira Dolphin, Natalie Dadon and India Naftali.
“Today, we witnessed a disaster that we only saw on the news until now. It was so hard to take in. We visited places where terrible tragedies took place, yet it was important for us to see them in person. This tour really opened my eyes to the horrors that happened on Oct. 7,” said Dadon.
“I think these areas are living evidence of a second Holocaust which the Jewish people went through,” said Elkayam. “I believe that it is right to preserve these areas as areas of commemoration and heritage so that we will never forget.”
