They survived October 7. Now they’re divided over who should rule Israel

Three years after the attack, residents near Gaza are torn between demanding Netanyahu’s departure and backing an even harder right For residents of Israel’s Gaza Envelope, the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, was not an abstract national trauma. Communities close to the Gaza border were among the first to come under assault, and residents spent hours locked in safe rooms, hiding from gunmen and rocket fire. Three years later, that shared experience has produced sharply different political conclusions among people living in the same region.Michal Koren Kariv, a 50-year-old filmmaker from Kibbutz Mefalsim, remembers that morning all too well. As Hamas launched its deadly assault on communities across southern Israel, her family remained inside their home as armed militants reached the area. They spent hours in a protected room without electricity, unsure of what was happening outside.When the family was finally able to leave, Koren Kariv says she saw devastation on a scale she had never witnessed before. The experience, she says, fundamentally changed her relationship with the state.“I no longer believe anything,” she said. “Simply nothing.”Accountability is a mustFor her, the c...