Israel's 'Car Wall': A Graveyard Of Vehicles To Remember Hamas' Terror Attack

A once-empty parking lot west of Israel's Tkuma moshav (or village) is today a macabre vehicular memorial to the October 7, 2023, terror attack by the Hamas, in which over 1,000 people, many of them civilians, were killed and around 250 dragged back to the Gaza Strip.

Visitors to the 'car wall' - as the memorial has been called - are greeted by a stacked pile of burnt and twisted chassis of over 1,500 jeeps, sedans, and motorcycles destroyed or damaged in the attack, some riddled with bullets and others blasted by anti-tank rounds.

Among the mangled metal bodies is an ambulance in which eight people died and a white pick-up truck, which belonged to an Israeli citizen, but now lies crumpled, its frame broken and its side machine-gunned. Some were also the final resting place of their occupants, whose bloody bodies had to be extracted, and sometimes scraped, out of the cabins.

Some of the vehicles in the 'car wall' were dragged from Route 232 (an Israeli highway) and other places in the Gaza envelope, which is a populated area in southern Israel that is within seven km of the Gaza border and within range of mortars and rockets fired by the Hamas.

Most were dragged from the massacre at a nearby music festival. The Nova Festival - a peaceful gathering of music-lovers - was targeted by Hamas terrorists as part of its shock attack that day. Over 250 people were slaughtered; a survivor told British broadcaster BBC "fifty terrorists arrived in vans, dressed in military uniforms (and) fired guns in bursts".

Some of the vehicles the terrorists used, including motorcycles and another large white pick-up with a gun mounted in the rear, are also in the 'car wall'.

The car lot near Tkuma isn't the only one of its kind. About 20km away, near the kibbutz (farming settlement) of Re'im, a second 'car wall' stands in grim and silent memory.

These were the vehicles of ordinary people, and each one has a story to tell.

Vehicles driven by people who had no idea of the horror and bloodshed they were about to witness and, for over a thousand men and women, this was to be their final hours of their lives. And many of those who managed to survive will know others who did not.

The October 7 attack prompted Israel to launch a full-scale military invasion of Gaza, an invasion that, nearly two years later, continues amid global condemnation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his plan to fully occupy the shattered Palestinian enclave.

After the collapse of indirect ceasefire talks with Hamas, Mr Netanyahu's office said he is set to convene his security cabinet this week to decide on Israel's next steps in Gaza and direct the Israeli forces on "how to achieve the three war objectives we have set...defeating the enemy, releasing our hostages and ensuring that Gaza will never again threaten Israel".

The Israeli leader is under growing international pressure to end this war.

Relentless air strikes and ground assaults have not only pummelled the Hamas group and its terrorist network, but also caused a humanitarian crisis that threatens to wipe out millions of civilians as they lurch from starvation and a healthcare crisis to, now, a severe water shortage.

Aid efforts have been largely piecemeal, hampered in part by Israeli military control of and access to Gaza. Israel, however, insists aid is being countered by Hamas themselves.