Zohar Shpak: “We used to take their children for cancer treatment. And then they came and killed our families.”

September 13, 2024

Phil Johnson, Ph.D.

Israel has a long history of violence perpetrated against them – as a people and as a State. During this past week in Israel, I heard stories of lives brutally cut short when Hamas terrorists broke through the Israeli border last October and murdered innocent people.  While the war continues and while hostages are still in captivity, I decided to visit the places and people of this unending nightmare in southern Israel. 

While visiting the Kfar Aza Kibbutz, I met Zohar Shpak, a resident and a human rights lawyer. For years, Zohar had been part of a program that went to the Israel-Gaza border and brought Arab kids who had cancer into Israel for treatment. His view was that while their parents harbored a lot of hatred for Israel, it wouldn’t be the same in the future. But now he says, was completely wrong. “We used to take their children for cancer treatment. We’d pick them up at the border and take them to Israeli hospitals, get their treatment and return them to their families. We cared about their lives. We didn’t want their children to suffer and to die. And then they came and killed our families. We understand that our kindness made no difference. We won’t make that mistake again.” (Watch the videos below)

Sixty-two people were killed in Kfar Aza and nineteen were taken hostage. Zohar Shpak showed me around and told me some of the individual stories. He told me of a father who had to burry his son without his head. For months and months they sifted through the aftermath of the terror attack but could never find the head. It is understood that more than likely, the head was taken as a trophy for the Hamas militant who cut it off. 

Zohar also took me into one of the homes where the terrorists had collected too many Jews to take hostage. They simply divided up the excess people, put them into two different Kibbutz homes and summarily shot each of them. And yes, the beheadings and the rapes of both men and women are true. 

Back in Jerusalem, I fell into conversation with some Orthodox Jewish young men outside of the Jaffa Gate of the Old City. As we discussed the ongoing situation one of the men named Moshe, looked at me as said, “You know, I hesitate to say this, it might be an unpopular opinion, but I think this whole problem might have to do with Islam.”

No kidding.