Israeli authors tackle trauma of Oct. 7 attack
JERUSALEM—Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack has spurred a literary output so extensive that nearly one year later, some Israeli bookstores have entire sections devoted to the country’s deadliest day since independence.
The roughly 50 Hebrew-language titles surveyed by AFP include detailed, unflinching testimonies from survivors.
There are also offerings from other genres from comic strips to a book of poetry written by one of the victims and published posthumously.
Israeli-Belgian cartoonist Michel Kichka told AFP these early publishing efforts are necessary to build “a stone for the building that will recount this day for history.”
Kichka contributed to the French-language comic collection “At the Heart of October 7,” which was published on Wednesday.
It brings together Israeli authors in an effort to, according to its publisher, “collect the words of those who lived through the horror, to leave a trace and to prevent these tragedies from sinking into oblivion.”
The Hamas attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which includes hostages killed in captivity.
Militants seized 251 captives during the attack, 97 of whom are still held in the Gaza Strip, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,084 people, according to the Hamas-run Palestinian territory’s health ministry, which does not provide details of civilian and militant deaths.
