'The October 7 War': A photojournalist’s testimony of horrors and resilience - review

The book contains a selection from the hundreds of thousands of photos Koren took in the first five months of the war. It is a monumental project documenting events at a time when the truth itself is under attack.

In the preface, Koren explains, “On the morning of October 7, life turned into one long, single day. Since that dramatic Saturday, I have been in a race to document the war and tell a story bigger than all of us. Because after such inconceivable events, I think that without authentic documentation, we would one day struggle to believe that this happened, that in 2023, the State of Israel experienced the most dramatic tales of horror and heroism since the Holocaust….

“I’ve seen tragedy before. I photographed mass graves in Bucha, Ukraine; in Haiti, Nepal, and Turkey, I documented the horrors of earthquakes. But here in Be’eri, and Nahal Oz, in Kfar Aza and at the site of the Nova music festival, the images I captured are more than just destruction; they are the embodiment of horror. Over and over again, I collected evidence of unimaginable cruelty and the pure evil of human monsters – a clash of civilizations in every sense of the word.”

Some of the photographs are well known from news reports, such as the charred kibbutz homes and bloodstained bedrooms; others are startling and less familiar – a kibbutz cowshed seen through a bullet hole; covered bodies next to a Sderot bus stop, its walls lined by an incongruous street library.

There are also stories of volunteerism, heroic soldiers, and the rebuilding of communities. Amid the terrible suffering, there is hope. Among the images that made the strongest impression on me was one of released hostage Mia Schem being literally showered with love – having her hair washed by her mother and uncle after surgery in the orthopedic department of Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan. She recalls how during the weeks of captivity she dreamed of her mother bathing her and taking care of her and her wounded arm.

Engaged couple Gali Segal and Ben Binyamin, who both lost their right legs, are seen “making a train” with their wheelchairs in a hospital corridor, undergoing rehabilitation together, and “practicing for the first slow dance” at their wedding.

It is impossible not to be moved by the story of the Golan family from Kfar Aza. Baby Yael and her parents, Elai and Ariel, were all severely burned when terrorists set their home on fire with them trapped inside. The parents struggled to protect their daughter with their own bodies and managed to escape through a window at the last moment. Elai recalls the harrowing hours of physically struggling with the terrorists – she was stabbed through the shower window as cooking gas cylinders were thrown inside. She tells of their escape, and struggling to stay conscious and alive as they hid behind a tractor – the noise of shots and sirens surrounding them – until they were finally rescued.

Yael’s grandparents are documented at her side in her hospital bed, her tiny limbs wrapped in white bandages. Her parents had to be treated under sedation due to their extensive burns; Elai remained attached to an ECMO machine for 53 days. The touching photos record the family’s road to recovery – “learning how to rehabilitate ourselves.”

Nine months after her devastating experience and despite her severe wounds, Elai Hogeg Golan completed her medical internship. She is pictured in her doctor’s gown, a stethoscope around her neck, a smile on her face – her arms and hands still in burn bandages.

The book ends with two pages printed in black, dotted with white photo frames. These represent “The Photos Not Taken.” They include an empty space waiting for the return of the Bibas family – Shiri, Yarden, and their two red-headed sons Kfir and Ariel. There is a void instead of the last picture taken by slain Yediot Aharonot photographer Roy Edan, his three-year-old daughter Avigail in his arms. (Avigail was kidnapped, along with the neighbors who took her in after both her parents had been murdered while her two older siblings hid in a closet. She was released from captivity after 50 days.) There is an empty frame for the IDF female field observers. Only two out of 25 survived the attack on their base at Nahal Oz. Five observers remain in Hamas captivity. Aner Shapira, an off-duty combat soldier who threw seven grenades back at the terrorists while trying to protect the young people huddled in a shelter, is commemorated but not seen. Shapira was killed when the eighth grenade exploded.

“The events of October 7 presented us with a historic confrontation – immense in its dimensions and scope,” writes Koren. “The inconceivable reality of this nightmare is made up of countless horror stories, heroic tales, and human dramas. Most of these moments were not documented in real time, and their haunting ‘absence’ screams out from the ‘presence’ that appear in this book, like a black hole that cannot be ignored. These pages are a symbolic reminder of the power of reality against the limitations of documentation. We will not forget, and we will not forgive – with and without photographic evidence.”

Koren’s The October 7 War is heavy to pick up and hard to put down. This is not a classic coffee table photography book but it is of lasting importance. Buy it, study the photos, read the testimonies, and put it on a shelf so that one day, when the memories are a little less raw, the record of this national nightmare will still be available to those who lived through it and to future generations.

In the words of the biblical commandment: Zachor! – “Remember!”■