Noa Bellavita ’18

Posted on January 21, 2024

My name is Noa Bellavita, and I am 23 years old. I grew up on Kibbutz Magen in the Gaza envelope. Later, I moved with my family to Kibbutz Sede Nehemia in the north, next to Kiryat Shmona.

Since the war broke out, most of the kibbutzim around us in the Hula Valley have been evacuated by the government. Just our kibbutz and a few others were not officially evacuated – because we are more than five kilometers from the Lebanon border, and that is the line that the government used to determine who would be evacuated and who would not be. However, my kibbutz is only several hundred meters from the five-kilometer line, and all of the people who live there have left. More or less the same thing has happened in all the communities in the area.

Since the beginning of the war, only my father has stayed at home. He can’t leave because of his work. My two sisters are also not in their homes. One of them had to go with my mother to Tel Aviv, because her school is not functioning. The other was evacuated from her home in Kibbutz Magen, and she is in the Dead Sea area, with the rest of the people from her kibbutz.

For some time already, I haven’t really had any words. Even now, when I try to write, I do not have words. This is not surprising. In general, for some time now I have felt like a great silence has enveloped me – a total, penetrating, paralyzing silence. The silence has invaded me, and I cannot break it. How can one break a silence like this?

This silence exists next to, above, and underneath all of the noise. On the surface, the world right now is full of noise. Both at my home in the north, and at Kibbutz Kissufim in the Gaza envelope, where I am now, the noise is never ending. Tanks, artillery, helicopters, shooting from helicopters, interceptions. I have already learned to distinguish between them, and I am almost not frightened.

Most of the time, above Gaza, which is around two kilometers away from where I am now, we can see only a cloud of dark, constant soot. On good days, we can see the explosions themselves. Today, we can see the sea.

And there is the sound of talking. Really, there is one long, continuous speech on the television and radio stations. And in the hotels in the Dead Sea and Eilat, where people are evacuated, constant murmurs have replaced the usual gossip in the dining hall – that hostage who is still there – is he still alive? What about his daughter? Who is in Gaza? What is happening on the Kibbutz? Who is coming to visit today from the local security forces who stayed on the Kibbutz? All of it is meaningless noise, distraction from the silence.

I discovered this silence on my first visit back to Kibbutz Magen, the kibbutz where I grew up in the Gaza envelope, since the war broke out. Abandoned. Seeing the few people walking around there, members of the local security forces and soldiers, made me sad. It reminded me of what was missing. The television that is constantly on at my grandparents’ house was off; the house was empty; they are not there. And that silence, silence that no one breaks. What would be the point?

Since that visit, the silence is here all the time. It accompanies me along the concrete barriers that the army has put up in the north, on my way to visit my father at home. There, the silence is perhaps the most hair-raising evidence of the war. The silence overcomes me every time I listen to music; I have almost lost my tolerance for songs. Everything feels wrong. The silence is particularly tangible at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv. A face, a face, a face, a face – still hostages, more and more hostages, and all of them swallowed up in a killing silence, like a tremendous grave. And the grave of Regev, from the kibbutz – silent. There is really no longer any reason to make noise next to him.

When it is hard, I want to scream from within the silence. The silence feels like a pit from which life cannot grow. And sometimes, when it is a bit easier to breathe, I think that maybe the silence is necessary – it is the world’s natural response. And maybe, really, only from within the silence can we continue once again.