Route 232 runs the length of the Gaza border, connecting the kibbutzim along the Strip and then crossing into Sderot, the largest Israeli city near Gaza.
On October 7, 2023, this road was strewn with burned vehicles, cars full of bullet holes, and dead bodies. Today, it is quiet. Two years later, cars came and went. Not enough to feel like there was a lot of traffic, but enough to feel that there was life here. Some of those driving this relatively lonely road were coming down to commemorate October 7.
There is a small turnoff from Route 232 just south of a roundabout near Kibbutz Sa’ad. It’s hard to notice if you aren’t looking for it.
Here, there is a brownish-burgundy sign that says “tatzpitaniyot” (“field observers”) and indicates there is a memorial here for the 15 female soldiers who were killed at the Nahal Oz base on October 7.
They were some of the hundreds of soldiers who were killed in the massive attack. The women soldiers are a symbol of the disaster because so many of them from the same unit were killed in terrible circumstances.
Fifteen female soldiers killed at Nahal Oz memorialized
These soldiers are observers or spotters who monitor screens that come from live feeds of intelligence platforms overlooking Gaza, such as cameras observing areas. The women would sit in a fortified command center behind screens. Their area was within the Nahal Oz base, which is a menagerie of buildings on the Gaza border, near a kibbutz by the same name.
On October 7, the base was attacked and overrun. The women were killed, some of them stuck in their command center, which was burned in an inferno, and some of them were killed in other areas of the base.
Noa Marciano, one of the kidnapped women, was killed in Gaza, Ori Megidish was freed in an IDF rescue operation early in the war, and five others – Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy, Agam Berger, and Liri Albag – came home in the ceasefire in January 2025.
Two years after the massacre at Nahal Oz, the memorial for the fallen women is full of people. They have come to see the faces of the soldiers who fell. They come because they know women in the unit, or because they want to learn the story of the fallen. Some of those who come are the same age as the young women soldiers.
In fact, it seemed a majority of those who came on October 7, 2025, were young women. At the top of the hill that has become part of this memorial, there is a place to overlook Gaza and the base where the women were killed in the distance.
This hill shows a panorama of the border. Kibbutz Alumim is to the south. On October 7, the kibbutz was attacked. Foreign workers from the kibbutz were massacred, and a helicopter that arrived with combat soldiers was struck by enemy fire. This whole area would have been surrounded by chimneys of smoke billowing from areas under attack two years ago.
Now it is quiet, with the sole exception being the sound of one or two explosions in Gaza that could be heard from the border, as the IDF is still deep inside Gaza.
Around 80% of Gaza is controlled by the IDF. As peace talks continue in Egypt, things may change. However, the destruction of Gaza is also visible from here.
This landscape has changed since October 7. The fields of the kibbutzim are being tilled and plowed. However, on the Gaza side, there are no civilians visible. No homes seem intact. It is complete destruction due to the war Hamas launched.
Every kilometer of Route 232 is etched in the memory of people. The armored bus stops are full of stickers of the fallen. Many of these sites became tombs on October 7, as people sought shelter and were then killed by terrorists.
In many places, people fled, hoping to find safety, not knowing there was no safe place. Kibbutz Be’eri, down the road, was overrun and took days to be liberated by the IDF. There are a number of well-known bike trails near the kibbutz, but no one seems to be riding two years after October 7.
A few IDF Humvees are parked on the side of the road instead, near a sign for the ANZAC troops that fought here in 1917. Those were troops from Australia and New Zealand who were part of the Allied effort to take Ottoman-controlled Palestine during World War I. It’s a memory that reminds us that this area has been fought over in the past.
Up the road at Kibbutz Sa’ad and Mefalsim, there are many cars with yellow ribbons, people hoping the hostages will come home.
Kibbutz Kfar Aza is on the other side of the road, the site of another massacre. Down the road from here, toward the Black Arrow site, there are several memorials. People have added banners, flags, and stickers, or flowers and other various adornments.
On the crest of a hill is a large poster that has hung here for a decade. It is a drawing of fallen soldiers Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, and civilians Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed. Mengistu and Sayed were held in Gaza for 10 years as hostages and were released in the January 2025 ceasefire deal. Hamas kidnapped the bodies of Goldin and Shaul in 2014 and held them in Gaza. Shaul’s body was recovered in January 2025. Goldin’s remains in Gaza. The poster reminds us that for over a decade, they were left in Gaza.
In Sderot, the town of 35,000 is quiet. However, people have returned here after being evacuated in October 2023. The whole border was evacuated at the time, and many people have returned. However, despite the return, nothing is the same.
There is quiet. It is somber. There aren’t huge crowds coming here to memorialize the tragedy. And there aren’t people out riding bikes and living a completely normal life.
This is partly because it is a holiday as well as an anniversary. However, there is also a sense that this is not over. The war continues. The country wonders if it will end. Down at Zikim beach, which is just north of Gaza, the beach is still closed. It was the site of a massacre on October 7. It is a closed military zone.
A few families who knew people killed on the beach that morning went to pay their respects. A sign near the beach is still full of bullet holes. Despite the renovations and a newly paved road, the signs of that dark day two ye