San Francisco Frontiers - Israeli kibbutz rebuilds after 2023 attack as residents mull return

Hamas's 2023 attack tore through the community of around 400 people, just two kilometres (little more than a mile) from the border but, 16 months later, Nirim is rebuilding now that the bombs have subsided.

"It's so important that we make it beautiful again," said Adele Raemer, an Israeli-American who has lived in the kibbutz for 49 years.

"We're rebuilding our resilience to feel safe again here," the 70-year-old retired teacher said.

A row of houses in the northwest of the kibbutz -- scarred but not destroyed in the Hamas attack -- has been newly renovated, the walls of the single-storey buildings shining white in the winter sun.

Further down the street, construction workers were laying tiles and applying more white paint to a house which had been gutted by rocket fire from Gaza in the weeks after October 7, 2023.

The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

The militants killed four of Nirim's 400 or so inhabitants and took five more hostage, according to figures from the Israeli military.

Israel's retaliatory offensive in Gaza killed at least 48,365 people, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers reliable.

- 'War could reignite' -

In the corner closest to the perimeter fence, within sight of Gaza, work has yet to begin on 30 houses which were the most heavily damaged.

"It hurts being here in this corner," Raemer said.

Only a few trees are still standing, their branches lopped off after they were burnt in the attack.

Raemer says she is preparing to move back into her own home deeper inside the kibbutz but does not know when she will return permanently.

Her safe room, where she hid with her son during the attack, has been given a fresh coat of paint.

Raemer described the day of the attack as an "11-hour nightmare". Hamas gunmen tried, unsuccessfully, to break into her home through a side window and the front door.

"I looked at my son. He looked at me. We told each other that we loved each other and basically said goodbye."

Despite those memories, Raemer said she is determined to return.

"My plan is to start spending a few nights here at a time... If I feel secure enough, I may come back earlier."

Her decision rests, in part, on the fragile truce between Israel and Hamas, which is holding despite several close calls.

"I realised that the war could reignite at any minute," Raemer said.

"I have made the decision that I will be coming home. I'm stubborn... Every family is going to have to decide for themselves."

- 'Another solution' -

Fourteen kilometres (nine miles) northeast of Nirim, Kibbutz Beeri was even worse hit by the 2023 attack. The militants killed 101 of its residents and abducted 30, according to army figures.

Beeri resident Alon Pauker, 59, an academic at Beit Berl College, told AFP a third of Beeri's homes and many communal spaces were destroyed.

He estimated reconstruction would take two years but said no decision had yet been taken on how much of the destruction should be cleared and how much preserved as a memorial.

Pauker said the militants had turned the community into a "battlefield for 15 hours". He and his wife had survived in their safe room.

"We were very lucky... we didn't have such a tragic situation," he said. "They didn't burn our houses and they didn't try to get into our safe room."

Most of Beeri's residents, including Pauker's family, now live in temporary accommodation in Kibbutz Hatzerim, 18 kilometres (11 miles) southeast of their old homes.

Pauker said there needed to be more clarity about the future political arrangements for Gaza before residents would feel secure enough to return home.

"Mentally we have to know what the political situation should be. It depends on what there will be behind the border, because we can't imagine ourselves living near a territory still controlled by Hamas.

"We need another solution," he said.

E.Cruz--SFF