Nir Oz lost a quarter of its residents in Oct. 7’s massacre — but is resolute on a rebirth

Kibbutz Nir Oz is rebuilding — slowly. 

This once-idyllic, idealistic community of 415 residents was among the hardest hit by the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. 

Hamas and other terrorists murdered or kidnapped 117 people from the kibbutz — more than one in four residents. 

Now the living hostages and all but two of the dead have returned to Israel, and the war feels limited to units fighting Hamas in Gaza tunnels and the occasional sound of artillery fire in the distance. 

Life is returning to a place marked by death for so long.

I was among the first journalists to visit Nir Oz in November 2023, weeks after the attack. I befriended the local spokeswoman, Irit Lahav, and returned several times as I covered Israel’s war on several fronts. 

But I had not been back in a year — not since my own family was uprooted by the Los Angeles Palisades Fire in January.

Of course, the Jan. 7 fire was not accompanied by the murders, abductions and rapes of Oct. 7. But the blaze’s destructive power was eerily similar.

“What a devastation,” Irit texted me when I sent her photos of my own burned-out neighborhood.

After a year away from Israel, I was curious about how Nir Oz was faring — partly because I want to know whether Pacific Palisades, too, can rebuild.

What I saw in Nir Oz was a mixed picture. Some homes look exactly as they were on Oct. 7. One burned house still has knives in the safe room, brought there by the family who retreated to wait for an assault that, luckily, never came. 

Nearby, the home of volunteer security guard Tamir Adar is superficially intact, though covered with graffiti by mourners: He fell battling gunmen outside. His wife and children survived, and terrorists recently returned his body from Gaza.

Other areas have been cleared of debris. And in one corner of the kibbutz, new homes are under construction, their foundations laid and concrete walls already standing. 

The communal dining hall, once covered in shattered glass and soot, is clean and bright, the tables neatly laid. The clanging, shouting sounds of work crews compete with the screeches of exotic parrots.

Irit is somewhat ambivalent about returning. She and her neighbors were evacuated: first to a hotel in the Red Sea city of Eilat, then to temporary apartments in the desert city of Kiryat Gat. 

A few months ago, her Nir Oz home was renovated, and she moved back in — partially. She finds the nights haunting — so much so that she has taken to sleeping in Kiryat Gat and driving back to Nir Oz in daylight.

“I used to go to sleep and lock all the windows, turn down all the shades, make sure 10 times that my door is locked, go to sleep — oh no, get up, lock my bedroom door again,” she said. “So it was very hard for me, and it is still very hard for me to sleep here. But I try. So I sleep here a few nights a week.”

Other residents who have come back have endured similar struggles.

Gaza is still visible in the distance — that is, the ruins of Gaza. There, Palestinians are also returning to homes destroyed during the war. They face similar challenges — and worse, since Hamas is still in control.

While in Israel, I joined one of the first groups of journalists allowed into the Gaza Strip — with heavy protection from the Israel Defense Forces.

We saw the devastation of Gaza for ourselves. 

Our vantage point was an IDF outpost in northern Gaza that overlooks the so-called yellow line, the temporary boundary dividing Gaza into western and eastern halves. Israeli forces control the latter under the terms of President Trump’s cease-fire, at least in its first phase.

The outpost is near the neighborhood of Shejaiya, which was destroyed. Hamas had sunk tunnel shafts under nearly every home and stockpiled weapons in residential buildings, which were often booby-trapped to kill as many Israeli soldiers as possible.

As a result, Israel was forced to flatten nearly everything in sight, through airstrikes, controlled demolitions or simple bulldozing.

Nothing is left except rubble and rows of concrete pillars pointing skyward, like giant bones, bleaching in the sun.

The scale of the destruction is difficult to comprehend — until one looks toward the northern and eastern horizons and sees how close the neighboring Israeli civilian communities are.

These are the towns Hamas targeted Oct. 7 and which had suffered sporadic rocket fire from Gaza for many years before that.

Ashkelon, for example — a crucial coastal town, housing one of Israel’s most important power plants — appears so close that it almost feels like it’s part of Gaza.

Israelis living there were subjected to some of the worst rocket attacks of the war. Most were evacuated northward — save for the elderly and disabled, who could not easily be moved and were sustained by a small army of volunteers.

In the middle distance, one sees buildings that are badly damaged but still standing. That is roughly where the yellow line runs, with giant yellow concrete blocks marking the boundary.

Far to the west, Gaza City’s high-rises are still largely intact. For nearly two years, the IDF had been reluctant to attack the Hamas terror state’s de facto capital since that was where the remaining living Israeli hostages were most likely being held.

Finally, the IDF prepared to go in — until the cease-fire spared Gaza City.

Today, life in Gaza City continues almost as it was before the war. But neighborhoods like Shejaiya will never be the same. Indeed, one of the most daunting questions is where all the rubble is going to be hauled.

The ruins are lifeless, save for the occasional raven or stray dog. The wind howls across the emptiness where there was once life and perhaps even hope.

Irit might have empathized with Shejaiya’s Palestinians. But she says she doesn’t have the emotional energy to think about life on the other side of the fence. She cannot overcome her anger that Palestinians she helped for years carried out a massacre.

Nir Oz, meanwhile, has begun erecting monuments to its victims and its heroes. Residents are processing what happened and trying to move forward. 

The same is true several miles up the road, at the site of the Nova music festival, where Hamas murdered nearly 400 partygoers; I returned to pay my respects.

What was at first a makeshift memorial has become more organized — less “authentic,” perhaps, but more accessible to visitors, with placards and explanations. 

I noted for the first time how many couples died at each other’s side.

There is something peculiarly Israeli about that. People fall in love all over the world, but in Israel, everyone — even the most secular couples, even within the raver counterculture — seems to aim at marriage, or at least permanence, and parenthood. 

A poster in memory of Nova victim Noa Englander, 23, stands next to a poster of her boyfriend, Noam Efraim, 24, who was a DJ (stage name: LOUDERZ) at the music festival.

“Noa and Noam were killed and died in each other’s arms,” her mother said shortly after Oct. 7. “In life and death they did not part.”

The emphasis on family accounts for the fact Israel is the only Western country with a birth rate above replacement. It also inspires Israelis to undertake daring acts of self-sacrifice for one another.

Nova’s survivors remain close-knit, holding weekly gatherings and encouraging each other not to give up on their ideals — to keep on dancing. 

It is a real challenge. One survivor, who was shot as he fled Hamas terrorists, told our team of journalists nothing had made him whole again — not even re-enlisting in the military to fight back.

It might be easy to despair at war’s aftermath. But Nir Oz reminds us that recovery, however uneven, is possible — if we have enough faith and love to see it through.