Ivanka Trump, the daughter of former US President Donald Trump, and her husband, senior advisor to the former president, Jared Kushner, arrived in Israel Thursday for a solidarity visit.
Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana accompanied the couple as they toured Kfar Aza, their first stop out of two in their day-long visit.
For nearly two hours, only a kilometer from Gaza City and with the sound of artillery fire in the background, Ivanka and Jared went door to door and spoke with residents of the kibbutz, Maor Morvia, Shahar Shnurman, and Hen Kotler, who shared their story and the tragic stories of their friends who were murdered and abducted by Hamas on October 7th.
Shahar, who tattooed the date "07/10/23" on his arm, noted that he returned to the kibbutz with his wife, Ayelet Cohen, and in fact, they are the first and only ones living in Kfar Aza. Hen gave Ivanka a dog tag etched with the words: "Kfar Aza is home." Maor told the couple: "We must beat Hamas so our children can return here and play in the grass. This can not happen again."
At the end of the tour, Kushner and Trump thanked the residents and the security and rescue officials.
Jared Kushner told the soldiers and officers: "Thank you all for sharing the stories with us. I just have to say it's very humbling for me to be with you, with the heroic thing you did. You never know when your training for life puts you, and when the moment comes, somtimes we do things even more than we know we're capable of doing. But what you did made a massive difference. Thank you for what you did."