Gaza border, late September 2023: before the world turned upside down

Ten days before Oct. 7, we came to report on border protests and life beside Gaza three years later, we returned to the people we met, the friends they lost and the lives the massacre changed forever The sky above Nahal Oz was gray this week, just as it had been that morning in late September 2023. That is our first memory of the visit, 10 days before the catastrophe: gray skies hanging over the kibbutz fields and stretching toward the border fence and beyond it, into the crowded neighborhoods of Shejaiya. The weather was mild, carrying the first hint of autumn. We drove alongside the high concrete wall placed on a bend in the road to protect people traveling to the kibbutz from sniper fire from Gaza and stopped just after passing through the yellow gate.