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Transcript
00:00living in another place.
00:02It's not like moving from one city to another.
00:05I am from Kibbutz Beri.
00:07It's something really, really, really strong in my soul.
00:10But from the other hand, how can I go back?
00:13How can I go back into a place where I know
00:17that the Palestinians in Gaza,
00:20they have one goal.
00:22They want to kill me.
00:24That I understand.
00:26So it seems not to be responsible to go back.
00:29So I am torn between these two choices.
00:33And I postponed the decision for maybe two years
00:37in order to see what's going on
00:39and what would happen.
00:41So you postponed your decision.
00:45I'm sure you were apprehending this anniversary date.
00:49How has it gone today?
00:52So in the beginning of the day,
00:55I woke up really early.
00:57At 6.30, they started shooting us again
00:59because the 7th of October started at 6.30 a.m.
01:04So today for the anniversary,
01:06the people from Gaza shooted us again at 6.30 a.m.
01:10in order to remind us that we are still in war
01:13and to keep on the terror.
01:15This is how the day began.
01:18I can say that I'm very tense.
01:21Everything is tense.
01:23So I'm not in my house.
01:25I don't know where will I go back,
01:27if I will go back.
01:29The war is still on.
01:31And this tense has a ripple effect.
01:35So it affects my relationships inside the family.
01:39And it affects the relationship in the community.
01:42And it affects how I go and drive on the road.
01:47It affects everything.
01:49So everything is tense.
01:51We are at war.
01:53It is unbelievable that we are one year at war.
01:57It's a horrible situation.
01:59And today was horrible as well.
02:02But at least we were together,
02:04the community, the family,
02:06and we commemorate everything together.
02:09And we named all the 101 people
02:13that were murdered one by one.
02:15And we remember them.
02:17And we called for returning of the hostages.
02:20And these actions, where we do actions,
02:22and when we do something,
02:24so we are not helpless.
02:26And when we are not helpless,
02:28we feel strong,
02:30and we feel that we are doing something.
02:32Yeah, doing something.
02:34You, Yaniv Hayiv,
02:36started this organization,
02:41710memorial.org.
02:43You're compiling messages from the day.
02:48You talked about your son's PTSD.
02:50What are you subjecting yourself to every single day
02:53when you look at these messages of panic,
02:56these messages of grief?
02:59So first of all,
03:01it's really weird to say,
03:03but I don't go inside.
03:05I don't read the messages,
03:06because when I read the messages,
03:08my telephone is a view to what happened
03:11on 7th of October.
03:13When I read the messages,
03:14I go back to being in my safe room
03:18in Be'eri on 7th of October,
03:20when all the terrorists were roaming in the kibbutz.
03:23And I get the shivers now,
03:25even just from talking about it.
03:27So I don't read it,
03:29but I collect it.
03:30And in order to understand this project,
03:32you need to understand what was the WhatsApp for us
03:34on October 7th.
03:36The WhatsApp, the cell phone,
03:38was our only window out of the safe room.
03:41And everything was on WhatsApp,
03:43and everybody was on WhatsApp.
03:45So for example,
03:46that we saw in the news,
03:48just like before I came now,
03:50five minutes ago.
03:51So he said on WhatsApp,
03:53the terrorists are outside my house.
03:56And then he said,
03:57the terrorists went into my house.
03:59And then he says,
04:00which is a prayer.
04:03And then that's it.
04:04They took him to Gaza.
04:06So everything was on WhatsApp.
04:08And when I look at the WhatsApp messages,
04:10it's exactly what happened on that day.
04:12Because for example,
04:14I saw from my window,
04:16the house of my neighbors,
04:18as it's burning.
04:20And I took the picture,
04:22and I sent it in the WhatsApp group of the neighborhood.
04:25And then the neighbors,
04:27the four families that were in that house,
04:30they said,
04:31okay, tell me when I can run out of the house,
04:34when it's safe to go,
04:36because the terrorists are not outside.
04:38And we saw all the neighbors,
04:40we looked,
04:41and we said,
04:42okay, now,
04:43now, now, now,
04:44because everything is set to fire.
04:46And then one family went away.
04:48And another family called me by WhatsApp,
04:51and he said,
04:52I want to come to your house,
04:53a mother with three children.
04:55And this mother and three children,
04:57they went out their house.
04:59They saw terrorists from the right hand side,
05:01and then they ran left.
05:02They ran, ran, ran, ran to my shelter.
05:05They were under fire.
05:07Luckily,
05:08they could go into my house.
05:12And they were rescued.
05:14So everything,
05:15everything was on WhatsApp.
05:17And I think that that's the first event in the human history
05:21that was documented in real time,
05:24but by everybody that participated in this event.
05:28So I want to collect everything from all the Western Negev,
05:32from the kibbutzim,
05:33from the Moshavib,
05:34from the cities,
05:35from the people in Israel,
05:37in the center,
05:38my family that were in the center.
05:40We talked on WhatsApp from Jews around the world
05:43and my friends all around the world.
05:45They talked to me on 7th of October.
05:47They are a part of the story.
05:49It's a huge project,
05:51and I want to collect everything.
05:53And then to make out of it a virtual museum
05:56that people from all around the world can see.
05:59And then maybe a teacher from France
06:02can go into the virtual museum,
06:04and he can see a teacher from the Gaza Strip,
06:08from Israel.
06:09And he can see what happened to this teacher on this day
06:13and understand,
06:14were the teachers talking to one another?
06:17Did this teacher talk to his pupils?
06:20What did he say to the pupils?
06:22How did he give him forces?
06:24It can be an endless potential.
06:27Endless potential.
06:28Yaniv Yegi, back in the spring,
06:31you spoke with French newspaper Le Monde,
06:35and you said, quote,
06:36Generations of Palestinians have been raised to hate us.
06:39Those who believe that money and food would change everything,
06:42well, they too are naive.
06:45Is peace impossible?
06:47I will tell you.
06:49Before 7th of October,
06:51I was really, really left-wing.
06:53I promoted peace.
06:54I had, for example,
06:56I did a project that in Beirut,
06:59in the kibbutz,
07:00we will raise pigeons, carry pigeons,
07:02and in Gaza, in the zoo,
07:05we will exchange pigeons with kids that are writing notes.
07:10Afterwards, I tried to do a peace project
07:13that artists from Israel and from Gaza
07:16will create together
07:19because pain is universal.
07:21And I'm very, very left-wing in my sense.
07:26And then on October 7th,
07:28I understood how naive was I
07:31when I saw the terrorist in the eye,
07:33when I saw what they did to us.
07:35I understood that they were raised to hate us.
07:40They don't see in us any humanity.
07:44Their number one goal is to kill us.
07:47This is what I understood.
07:49So now I think, okay,
07:51first of all, if I believed before
07:55that it's our fault maybe,
07:58and if we end the occupation,
07:59everything will be okay,
08:01and if we just get food and education and work,
08:06everything will be okay.
08:08Now I understand that I was naive.
08:10In order for things to be better,
08:12I think the generations need to pass
08:15and education from both sides
08:18need to be education for peace
08:21and to see on the other side
08:23as human beings, as people.
08:27We are the same people.
08:28We hurt the same.
08:30And then maybe in 20, 30, 40 years,
08:32something will change.
08:34Now, at this point,
08:36I think that it's a little bit too late
08:38for thinking about peace.
08:40I think we need separation.
08:42I think we need distance from each other.
08:46We're not good neighbors.
08:48We need to be separated.
08:50That's for sure.
08:52Yanniv Yegdi, I want to thank you so much
08:54for joining us on this first anniversary
08:56of October 7th.
08:58Thank you very much for having me.

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