This man standing next to me in this picture is Gadi Kedem. His daughter Tamar, son-in-law Johnny, and three grandchildren (twin 6-year-old girls and a 4-year-old boy) were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists on October 7th in Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of the first locations attacked that day. The parents were shot, the house was set ablaze, and the children died in the fire. The entire Siman Tov family gone.

Nir Oz is a small village, home to about 400, 180 of whom were murdered or taken hostage. This is the same Kibbutz from where the Bibas family were captured and taken hostage. Noya Dan, the autistic Harry Potter fan whose picture was shared broadly before it was discovered that she had been murdered and not taken hostage, also lived here. The Kibbutz is closed now, off limits and guarded by the IDF, but we received permission to go in with Gadi and his wife, Rauma.

They walked us through their murdered daughter's house - books and toys still where they were, food still in the microwave, lulav and etrog on the table outside near the sukkah, bullet holes in the doors and ceiling, the structure blackened and burned.

Rauma tearfully explained that the bodies were so burned it took weeks to identify them. "Ein gufot" she kept exclaiming, "for two weeks I didn't even have bodies".

Another daughter lived with her family in the same Kibbutz. We walked through her house too, also burned. That family thankfully survived, the father seriously wounded by gunshot.

We walked through houses so burned that all that is left is a shell. One small house belongs to a murdered elderly man, his medication and walker tossed on the floor among the burnt ruins are the only signs that this was once someone's home. Another row of houses is so burned that all that remains are bits of melted plastic and metal hanging of walls and roof remnants.

We walked through the Kibbutz's school building, completely burned. We wondered around in silence, and then Rauma noticed one of her granddaughter's drawings pinned to the wall. It was in the shape of a Shofar, part of the children's Rosh Hashanah projects. She gently removed the pins, took it off, kissed it, hugged it, not wanting to let go of it.

Homes belonging to hostages still in Gaza have the familiar "Bring Them Home" posters stuck to their doors. But there is no one left to see them. The only signs of life on the Kibbutz are a few cats seemingly trying to find their prior homes.

The desolation just reinforced the visible destruction, the eerie silence sporadically punctured by sounds of explosions and gunfire coming from Gaza, the border being mere feet away. The contrast of such horror in such a beautiful remote idealistic location is impossible to comprehend.

They took us to a small cemetery next door where all five members of the Siman Tov family are buried in one large grave. We prayed and lit candles at the grave, Gadi stood motionless, Rauma was sobbing while tenderly wiping dust off the gravestones.

Gadi and Rauma live in a nearby Kibbutz, they took us to their house. Theirs is the fourth on the street. Terrorists entered their Kibbutz too on that dreadful day. They turned off the lights and hid, and were spared because the first three homes were empty, and when the murderous monsters looked through their windows they left, looking for signs of extinguishable life elsewhere.

Gadi thanked us for coming and listening, he said he has visited several times since the massacre; he hates coming but feels compelled to do so because he wants the story told over and over.

It was brutal, I can't even begin to describe the feelings and emotions. It feels a bit like it did the first time I visited Dachau, but somehow even more real.

I took a few pictures of the destroyed Kibbutz, but, honestly, I can't bring myself to share them.

I have no words.

Israel cannot stop. Hamas must be destroyed.