At a Dead Sea hotel, refugees from Kibbutz Be'eri count their dead and grieve

DEAD SEA, Israel (JTA) — Nearly three weeks after Kibbutz Be’eri was massacred, its surviving members still gather for their community’s traditional evening meeting.

The kibbutz, ransacked and empty, is now a closed military zone. To those familiar with the litany of atrocities committed on Oct. 7, its name has become synonymous with some of the day’s worst horrors. Many of Be’eri’s residents refer to that day as a “Shoah,” or Holocaust.

Now, the nightly meetings instead take place at the David Dead Sea Resort, where most of Be’eri’s members are staying as Israel fights a war against Hamas, th...