‘Will I ever go home again?’ The rebuilding of the kibbutzim ravaged by October 7

“It’s not a financial decision; it’s more of an emotional one. We don’t talk about how much it will cost us to leave the houses here, it’s not a real estate decision. We talk about the mental cost of leaving or destroying it.”

In her future home, she wants a secure underground room, with communication, food and water. She’s been told that’s not going to be possible. “All they’ll do is build a better door for the safe room. I don’t think it will be enough,” she says. On October 7 she spent 19 hours trapped in her safe room. One of the soldiers who saved her, Sagi Golan, was killed at another house a few hours later.

Ayelet Hakim outside her former home in Kibbutz Beeri. Her shirt shows her brother in law Ohad, a hostage in Gaza (Photo: Ricki Rosen) [Missing Credit]

Most of the residents of Be’eri have been relocated to Kibbutz Hatzerim, 25 miles to the east. Ayelet moved there in September so her children could start school, but she doesn’t feel it’s her home.

“I call myself homeless because I don’t have a home that I can call mine. Be’eri was my home and now I can’t live here. I hope to come back when they finish building a house for me,” she says. 

“Hatzerim is a solution for right now but it’s not a solution for life.”

Two more Be’eri residents who moved to Hatzerim in September because of the school year are Irish-Israelis Thomas and Emily Hand. That’s a miracle in itself, because Tom spent many weeks after the massacre thinking that Emily’s school days were over.

First he was told she was dead – and tearfully told the media that it was better that way, that she’d been spared the horror of being kidnapped into Gaza. Then he learned that she was alive, a prisoner of Hamas. Emily, who is now 10 years old, was released after seven weeks in captivity. She came out to the news that Narkis, Tom’s former wife, had been murdered on October 7. Narkis was Emily’s substitute mum, who helped Tom raise her after her mother died, when she was little more than a baby.

“The grief weighs heavily on you. The only time that there will be some relief is when we get everyone back,” says Tom. He shows me a pot of narcissus flowers – Narkis’s name means narcissus. The flowers help remind Emily of Narkis.

Tom Hand at home in Hatzerim (Photo: Ricki Rosen) [Missing Credit]

Grief is not a taboo subject for the pair. They’ve talked about what might happen when their dog Jonsey dies – Jonsey is quite old, and Emily wants to bury him in their garden.

Their new life in Hatzerim is good in some ways, says Tom. “It’s good to see everyone who is still alive. We just get on with our lives apart from doing whatever we can to help bring back the remaining hostages.”

Hand, born a Catholic, first came to Israel from England, as a volunteer in 1992. He fell in love with Be’eri, its people, its successful socialist system and with Narkis, wth whom he had two children. In his Hatzerim living room, Hand shows me a Christmas tree on a corner of the room and Chanukah candles on the dining room table. 

[Missing Credit]Tom Hand at home with Christmas tree in Hatzerim (Photo: Ricki Rosen)

It’s difficult to make Emily feel at home in the house, he tells me. “She is more secure outside. She still doesn’t sleep in her own bed which is in the safe room. She will be happier sleeping on the sofa or in my bed.

“Just the other night, I had to bring the car back to the carpool. Normally she would come get the bicycle and follow me. She was tired so I asked her if she wanted to go to the house. She said no. She didn’t want to come in without me. She is more comfortable outside in the dark.”

At first after Emily was released he still had to go with Emily to the toilet, she wouldn’t shower alone, but over the last few months, she has improved. And at first she spoke only in a whisper, but at a recent rally for the hostages she was able to shout ‘Bring them home!’ 

He would have returned to Be’eri by now if it were not for Emily. As it is, he thinks it will take years. “I see the next four to five years in Hatzerim. We still haven’t started building, we are still demolishing. Even if they started now, it would take two or three years. I might even bloody die here.

“It’s a statement to go back. I spent 30 years, the best years of my life in that kibbutz. Since October 7, I haven’t been able to live there. We lost that piece of land to them even though they don’t occupy it, neither do we. It’s very important for me to go home.” 

If Be’eri was famous for anything before the massacre it was its printing press, where Hand used to work. Founded in 1950, the press supplies some of Israel’s largest banks, telecommunications and insurance companies with materials for billing services, as well as credit cards, gift cards and cheque books. The press is operating again, although Hand is no longer working there- he needs to dedicate his time to his daughter.

I talk to Yuval Levy, 60, there, the press’s logistics manager. On October 7, Levy was alone in his house when the terrorists broke in. He managed to escape to the roof, where he was spotted. The terrorist asked him to be quiet and whether he was armed. He was not.

“He locked me outside on the roof and stole what he wanted. I stayed for 13 hours on the roof. There were many terrorists on the grass and the porch. In the evening, soldiers came, kicked in the door and rescued me.”

The ordeal was not over, the terrorists returned the next day. “A tank shot the house and now it’s burned. My father was murdered on October 7. My mother was hurt by a bullet, but she is OK.” It’s clearly painful for Levy to talk about his father, and he won’t give me any more details.

Be’eri is the only place he regards as home, he says, but it’s clear he has grave doubts about returning. “If we think, October 7 could happen again, we won’t return, if my daughter can go visit her grandmother alone without thinking twice about it, we will return.”

Seventy per cent of Be’eri’s community have moved to Kibbutz Hatzerim. Another 10 percent have returned to Be’eri and the rest have resettled elsewhere.  The Be’eri neighbourhood numbers 300 houses and was built outside Hatzerim, separated by a narrow road. It’s noticeably less green than the rest of the kibbutz. The building which will serve as the dining room for the Be’eri newcomers is not yet finished and both communities eat together in Hatzerim’s dining room.

Every Be’eri family who resettled there was allocated an adoptive family from Hatzerim. They provide the newcomers with guidance and information and also eat Friday night dinners together. Both communities attend the same social events and ceremonies and celebrate holidays together. 

The neighbourhood took about eight months to build. The houses are simply designed and range from 90 to 120 square feet depending on the size and age of the families who needed them.

Shuttles leave every morning from Hatzerim for those who still go to work in Be’eri. Aside from the printing press, many were employed at La Medavesh, a centre for off-road bike enthusiasts, at the entrance of the kibbutz.

But right now, few are coming to Be’eri for cycling. “This place is for cyclists. It has existed for 20 years. People come to rent bicycles. There are trails for families and children, not only experienced cyclists. There are 100 kilometers of trails. We also used to organise tours with groups. Right now, it’s not allowed because it’s a military zone,” said Erez Manor, the shop’s owner.

Erez Manor, owner of the bike business at Kibbutz Beeri (Photo: Ricki Rosen) [Missing Credit]

Manor has travelled the world on a bike and promoted cycling for decades. As he walks me around his property, which includes a shop, extensive storage and a restaurant, he tells me that most of his bicycles have not been used in months. 

“We have been open for a year but we don’t do rentals. We fix and sell bicycles and there is the restaurant. All my staff was from around here, some were wounded, some lived in Tel Aviv or the Dead Sea for a while, and some didn’t want to come back.” One will never return: Evyatar Kipnis who worked at the centre was murdered on October 7. 

Erez is currently living in a nearby moshav and plans to return to Be’eri in two years. His return is delayed by worries about his daughter’s schooling.

“My two sisters live here at the moment. My house is still standing. It’s ready to be lived in. We cleaned everything. There is the management, the printing press operates and the cafeteria is open.”

“Most people sleep in Hatzerim. Some no longer have a house to sleep in, others lost someone and it’s hard for them to come back.”

Leaving Be’eri, the drive to Kibbutz Nirim is about 15 mins along Route 232 – once a quiet unremarkable road, it's now known as “the road of death” due to the carnage Hamas unleashed on October 7, its terrorists shooting at vehicles as people tried to flee. Now the road surface is bumpy, broken up by tanks. It is not uncommon to see military vehicles along the road at all hours of the day.

Nirim was founded in 1946 after Israel’s founding Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion pushed for a Jewish presence in Negev, encouraging 11 communities to settle there. During the 1948 War of Independence, Nirim was the first Jewish settlement in Israel to be attacked by the Egyptian army. It was a frontier community then and it was still on the front lines on October 7. 

The gates of Kibbutz Nirim (Photo: Ricki Rosen) [Missing Credit]

The kibbutz celebrated its 77th anniversary on October 6 2023, at a party attended by hundreds of visitors as well as the 430 residents. There was live music and food eaten at tables on the kibbutz’s lawn. A photography exhibition shared pictures of "My Nirim". Little did the curators know that they were capturing a world that was about to change forever.

In Nirim on October 7, five civilians and three soldiers were murdered. Five people were kidnapped from the kibbutz: Hanna Peri, her son Nadav Popplewell, Noralin Agojo, Rimon Kirsht Buchshtav, and Yagev Buchshtav.  Peri, Agojo and Kirsht Buchshtav were released as part of the November 2023 ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. The bodies of Popplewell – a British citizen – and Buchshtav were recovered from Gaza by the IDF months later.

Despite the trauma, and despite the proximity of the Gaza border, less than a mile away, residents are actively preparing to return to Nirim.
“I’m in the process of changing the blinds on the windows, I’m considering putting electric ones instead. There was a lot of artillery fire and explosions. The houses have cracks in them.

"A house that has not been lived in for 447 days needs work,” says Adele Raemer, who has been a member of Nirim since 1975.

“People are not only coming back, they are rebuilding their houses.” 

There’s a sense that Nirim was lucky. In Kibbutz Nir Oz, only a mile away, one in four people, were either kidnapped or murdered. 

“There were many tragedies but also a number of little miracles,”  says Adele.

She tells me how Colonel Assaf Hamami, commander of the IDF Southern Brigade arrived at Nirim together with two other soldiers when the Hamas invaders attacked on the morning of October 7.

They were the first soldiers in Nirim to engage the terrorists and were killed in close combat. “The terrorist commanders wanted credit for murdering Colonel Hamami, so they took his body back to Gaza. The remaining terrorists were left leaderless.

“They still managed to kill and burn houses, but they weren’t as organised as others,”  Adele explains. Finally, an IDF tank and a helicopter drove off the terrorists.

When the attack first started with dozens of rockets before the ground invasion, Adele ran into her saferoom with her son, Adam Levy, who was visiting for the Simchat Torah holiday. “We heard noises of terrorists trying to open the door. When they realised they couldn’t, they left,” she tells me.

Adele Raemer prepares to move back to Kibbutz Nirim (Photo: Ricki Rosen) [Missing Credit]

She was rescued with her son after spending 11 hours locked in the house. They were then evacuated to Eilat.  Now she is determined to return.

“We have to see what is going to happen on the other side of the border. We have to decide how safe we feel. Residents will not move back with young children if they don’t feel safe,” she says. 

The Nirim community has been living in Beersheva for nearly a year. This year, students could choose to go to their original high school in Nofei Habsor in the northwestern Negev. They’re brought in by bus every morning.

“The school in the area is bomb-proof. There was a red alert a week and a half ago in the middle of the school day. They had to take cover,” Adele tells me.

The community has started organising events with children to get them used to living in Nirim again. 

“Two months ago, we had an event where we replanted our community garden, that was the first time since October 7 that I heard children’s laughter in Nirim. It’s hope-raising and so inspiring.”

Nirim is a green oasis in the arid Negev. As we visit Adele’s house, a gardener is mowing the lawn. The landscaping team proudly tells me that the concept of the kibbutz is “not a garden inside a house but a house inside a garden.” 

Thirty new houses for young people and young families will replace the houses destroyed on October 7. The rebuilding is expected to take eight months. “We finished planning it. Now the kibbutz must approve it and then we will start,” says Eitan Lanel, a member of Nirim’s civilian defence squad, now in charge of the reconstruction at the kibbutz.

Eitan Lanel (Photo: Ricki Rosen) [Missing Credit]

“We renovated abandoned houses that are still standing so that everyone who was here on Ocober 6 can come back –  not necessarily to their own home. Some do not want to their homes, after what happened. Everything in the house is a reminder of their grief.

“We are not going to make dramatic changes to the houses. The main changes must happen there,” he says, pointing in the direction of Gaza. 

“We won’t live in shelters. If we have to, there’s no reason to stay here. We came to live here because of the freedom and the security we once had. My young daughter could walk outside barefoot to go to her friends’ houses. If we can’t get that back, I don’t see what we are doing here,” he continued.  

Eitan says changes will also be made to the kibbutz civilian defence unit. 

“We understand now better than ever that we will have to rely on ourselves. We know we cannot trust anyone but ourselves. If the army comes, great but we will not trust it to happen”. 

“All the drills we did were always about waiting for the army, surviving five to 10 minutes until the army arrives. Nobody said we needed to wait for seven to 12 hours.”

On October 7, Nirim’s first responder squad comprised about 10 people trained to hold the fort for 10 minutes. A major army base is a five-minute drive away from the kibbutz.

“Now we will be 30 armed and trained first responders with machine guns and training. This will be our way of creating a new reality for us.”

Unlike other kibbutzim, Nirim will not leave any reminders of October 7 standing. “We have collected a lot of items but we will not leave burnt houses standing or houses with bullet holes,” says Eitan.

Like other southern Israel communities violated by Hamas, Nirim received funds from the government’s Tkuma Directorate for Rehabilitation. The kibbutz received over 150 million shekels (over £30 million). 

Maya Liberman helps a resident at Nirim (Photo: Ricki Rosen) [Missing Credit]

Each family owns their own house, Maya Liberman, the CEO of the kibbutz tells me that if they want to sell and move away, there’s is a waiting list of candidates looking to take their place as members of the kibbutz. 

“We have a list of six or seven families, but we expect that only one or two will actually come. If we don’t have a replacement for those who want to sell their houses, we will allow them to rent it, until – hopefully – more families come. ”

Hadas Greenberg dreams of returning home (Photo: Ricki Rosen) [Missing Credit]

Hadas Greenberg has lived on the kibbutz for six and a half years. “I was here on October 7. The terrorists broke into our home. They ate and drank. We were inside the saferoom and we heard them doing everything they wanted

“When I talk about  Nirim, I want to cry, that’s how much I miss it. Living in Beersheva is very hard for me. I can’t leave my young son alone in the garden for one second. At Nirim, the whole kibbutz is his home. 

“There is nowhere I feel safer than in Nirim."