TEL AVIV — Name it a small spark of sunshine within the wake of one of many darkest days on this nation’s historical past.

On Oct. 7, Hamas militants carried out a rampage throughout southern Israel, ensuing within the deaths of a whole bunch of civilians close to the border of Gaza.

One of many worst massacres got here on the website of the now-notorious Nova music competition, which occurred in a forest close to the group of Reim, shut by the border with the Palestinian enclave. The festivalgoers had gathered within the sand with tents and a makeshift bar to take heed to music.

This week, the Tel Aviv Expo is internet hosting a brand new exhibition that honors the reminiscence of these misplaced through the bloodbath on the competition.

“1000’s of radiant souls got here collectively for a celebration of unconditional love and the spreading of sunshine,” a poster on the entrance to the exhibit says. “In a single second the celebratory ambiance was shattered. The Angel of Demise swooped down.”

The Israeli offensive to avenge Oct. 7 continues to rage within the Gaza enclave, and there are mounting fears that the warfare may unfold throughout the area, However attendees say the exhibition is a method that Israel is now starting to course of the occasions of Oct. 7, to not transfer on however to mourn and are available to phrases with a world turned the wrong way up.

And it’s all occurring in real-time, as victims are nonetheless being recognized and hostages — together with many who got here to Reim to get pleasure from a live performance — stay separated from their family members.

The show has introduced collectively many relics from the positioning, to recreate the precise live performance website once more, this time indoors in a big corridor on the Expo. The tents utilized by the victims, their sneakers, the bar, and burned automobiles — all might be seen and supply a second for reflection and introspection.

Organizers have left the room darkish, as a haze of synthetic smoke billows round. Guests grapple with their senses as pulsating music mixes with the remake of the bloodbath website, in addition to screens commemorating the useless and people taken hostage by Hamas. A few of these competition goers are nonetheless captives inside Gaza, their destiny and future unsure greater than 75 days after the assault.

Within the weeks after Oct. 7, the killing fields round Reim and the competition website have been nonetheless filled with all of the automobiles the individuals had tried to flee in. A lot of these automobiles obtained caught in a area close by, others have been stuffed with bullet holes and burned after being attacked by Hamas fighters.

Armored bus stops, the place individuals ran for shelter, have been was demise traps as militants chucked grenades into them.

Burying the automobiles, fixing the indicators

This reporter noticed many of those areas on Oct. 16, 9 days after the bloodbath, driving alongside the highway and strolling the fields the place the automobiles have been discovered. The competition website was then nonetheless being cleaned and our bodies recognized.

Right now lots of the automobiles have been towed to an space alongside a highway resulting in Netivot. The Israeli police preserve watch over the positioning the place a whole bunch of automobiles, some burned, stay. Israel will bury among the automobiles as a result of they’ve human stays in them

That is one other manifestation of the nationwide must cope. Burial of automobiles, an unprecedented step, supplies finality to the investigation into the bloodbath.

On border roads close to Gaza, among the indicators have additionally been repaired. As an illustration, the highway from the Erez crossing resulting in Ashkelon, a significant thoroughfare that connects a number of border communities attacked on Oct. 7, now has new signage alongside the roadway. The repaired indicators sit subsequent to roads which are nonetheless broken from tank treads, proof of the battles on these roads that unfolded lower than three months in the past.

Within the metropolis of Ashkelon, which has been focused by 1000’s of Hamas missiles and drones, the 40,000 residents have been advised that faculty schedules will return to regular and different emergency measures taken through the warfare will now start a return to regular as properly.

As if to ship a message to the town, Hamas focused it with rockets once more on December 21, after a day and a half by which the Palestinian group that Israel, the U.S. and lots of Western nations have referred to as a terrorist group, had not launched a big barrage of rockets at Israel.

Israeli commanders say Hamas is dropping floor in its Gaza stronghold, however it nonetheless has rockets that may threaten cities in southern and central Israel.

Ashkelon is one instance of a metropolis making an attempt to return to regular. Nevertheless, for dozens of small communities alongside the Gaza border and the town of Sderot, evacuation orders nonetheless exist and residents can’t return.

As well as, the sound of combating and bombing might be heard in Sderot and most border communities. Smoke rises from the combating.

Israel has invested a finances in rehabilitating these communities, reinforcing their defenses and constructing new protected rooms from rocket fireplace, however all of this can take time.