REIM, Southern Israel (news agencies) — Each year as spring approaches, wildflowers erupt across Israel, a splash of color before the punishing Middle Eastern summer. Nowhere is the show more dramatic than in southern Israel, near Gaza, where brilliant red anemones burst forth with such intensity that rolling hills seem to be covered in red carpets.
Along the Gaza border, the flowers, which look like poppies, have been crowned with their own festival, Darom Adom, or Scarlet South. It’s been a major economic engine and source of local pride for nearly two decades, bringing hundreds of thousands to a little-visited and conflict-scarred part of Israel.
This year, even as explosions ring out and tanks churn across the fields as the war in Gaza drags into its fifth month, the flowers have burst forth with intensity. But the festival has been canceled, another war casualty.
For festival organizer Vered Libstein, everything is different.
Libstein lived in Kfar Azza, a kibbutz on the Gaza border hit hard by the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that started the war. She lost her husband, Ofir Libstein, her 19-year-old son, Nitzan, her mother, Bilha Epstein, and her nephew, Netta Epstein.
Ofir Libstein was on the kibbutz’s local security team and one of the first confirmed deaths on Oct 7. It took 12 days to find Nitzan’s body.
Seeing the dramatic red blooms return after so much loss pierces her heart, Libstein said as she walked through a field.
“On one side it’s hard, but on the other side it just proves to us that life is stronger than everything, and it renews itself, and we’ll need to find the strength to renew ourselves as well,” she said.
Hamas killed some 1,200 people and kidnapped around 250 during the Oct. 7 attack. Israel responded by launching one of the deadliest and most destructive air-and-ground offensives in recent history. Over 28,500 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women, children and young teens, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.
Libstein founded the Darom Adom festival with her husband 19 years ago, around the time when Palestinian militants started launching frequent rockets into Israel from Gaza. The flowers were a way to build pride and attract visitors.
The blooms are a symbol of resilience for Palestinians as well as Israelis. Palestinian artwork features the red flowers, whose black-and-white center and green leaves are the colors of the Palestinian flag. In 2013, an Israeli conservation group ran a popular vote that named the red anemone Israel’s national flower.
The Darom Adom Festival started as a volunteer hotline helping hikers find the most concentrated blooms. It quickly grew, spawning its own tourism company and becoming one of Israel’s largest nature events, Libstein said.
It usually features a packed schedule of concerts, organized hikes, bike rides, races, kids’ events, foodie markets, art galleries and farm visits. Events are spread over four weeks in January and February, when the blooms are at their peak.
In recent years, Darom Adom has drawn over 400,000 visitors and accounted for more than 80% of local tourism income for the year, according to the financial paper Globes.
Anemones grow across Israel, in whites, purples and pinks, but in the south they only bloom in bright scarlet. The festival name is also a nod to the “red alert” sirens that warn of incoming rockets.
Although the festival was canceled this year, some local businesses and artisans have organized pop-up markets. Israelis can order anemone bulbs to grow at home, though some are still making the trek south.
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