The Israelis Who Never Left October 7 Behind

On August 1, 2026, Lihi Asraf found her brother, Bar, lying on the grave of his best friend, Liron Barda. Liron was murdered in the Nova music festival massacre on October 7, 2023. She was buried in Elkana, in the West Bank, where she and Bar had grown up together in neighboring towns.

Lihi shouted Bar’s name, thinking he’d fallen asleep there—it was a place he regularly visited—but he didn’t answer. He had shot himself in the heart. He was 30.

“I think about the day I found him a lot,” Lihi told me. “Finding the person you know and love, a person who is so happy. . . and you’re calling his name and he’s not answering.”

“We couldn’t even cry,” she said. “We were too shocked.”

It was a Thursday in September, and she spoke to me while on break from guard duty at Israel’s border with the West Bank, where she serves in a light infantry defense unit. “My family has fallen apart,” she said. There were five Asraf siblings, and they used to regularly return to their parents’ house on weekends. Now, Lihi told me, there isn’t as much of a reason to do so. “We went from being the happiest family in the world—full of love and laughter and connection—and suddenly it’s extinguished. The house isn’t fun like before.”