KISSUFIM — Haggai Grosvirt and his wife Katrin have moved back into their home on Kibbutz Kissufim in late June after being displaced since October 7.
The couple barely escaped with their lives when dozens of Hamas-led terrorists rampaged through the kibbutz during the October 7 terror onslaught, leaving a trail of death and destruction in their wake. Together with the rest of the kibbutz residents, they were evacuated to Hotel Noga near the Dead Sea.
The Grosvirts’ house is situated on the westernmost point of the still-devastated kibbutz, less than a mile away from the border with the Gaza Strip. A line of trees in the distance blocks the Palestinian enclave from view, a defense measure against anti-tank missiles.
Among the 1,200 people murdered in southern Israel by thousands of rampaging terrorists on October 7 were 12 residents of Kissufim and six foreign workers. Kibbutz member Shlomo Mantzur, 86, was among the 251 hostages kidnapped to the Gaza Strip, and 11 Israeli troops were killed in battle defending the kibbutz.
Grosvirt and his wife hid in their safe room as Hamas gunmen attempted unsuccessfully to break into their home. When the IDF finally arrived, the Grosvirts escaped; afterward, a terrorist managed to break in and hide there for five days. When IDF soldiers came to clear the area, he opened fire, wounding three troops before he was killed. The terrorist’s bloodstains were still visible on the walls and drapes of the Grosvirts’ living room until a few weeks ago.
In the wake of the massacre, Israel vowed to make the Gaza Envelope “stronger than ever.” But, nine months on, while most residents of the region have returned home, most of the kibbutz remains deserted. Locals are deterred by the level of damage and the risk of attacks from Gaza, despite feeble government assurances that the area is safe.
Haggai Grosvirt, 65, has come back to help rebuild. Shrugging off the danger from the ongoing war raging next door, he discusses his return with a measure of stoicism.
“I came here for the rehabilitation efforts anyway… now I don’t have to commute here every day from Omer,” Grosvirt said, referring to the town near Beersheba where he and his wife temporarily settled after leaving the hotel.
A total of 34 buildings stand in ruin, bullet holes can be seen on outer walls across the kibbutz, and the dairy barn is still defunct. But the kibbutz is clean and tidy, with green lawns and lively gardening.
“Trees fell over, flowers withered and died, the grass was tall and dry after the wintertime… [but] things are completely different now,” said Noga Grosvirt, Haggai Grosvirt’s niece, who is helping restore the kibbutz.
Noga, 22, arrived in Kissufim in January to work in the avocado fields after concluding her military service. “We tried to make up for three months of lost work,” she said.
In March, Thai workers were brought in and Noga’s farming contract was terminated. “We didn’t plan to leave,” she said. “So four of us found new work to do around the kibbutz.”
The surrounding fields of produce, the kibbutz’s main source of income, have almost returned to full capacity, Haggai Grosvirt said. He and two other kibbutz veterans are managing the rehabilitation plans, and Noga is their office administrator. Although residents have not returned yet, the kibbutz is starting to get back on its feet with the help of young men and women.
Volunteers from the IDF’s Yael Battalion reserves unit guard the kibbutz while running errands in their spare time without pay.
“They work in avocado [farming], the chicken coop, wherever they are needed,” Grosvirt said.
Other volunteers have arrived from abroad as part of the international Garin Tzabar pre-military program for non-residents.
“These [volunteers] are more permanent,” Noga said. “They learn the work and get into a routine to the point that they know what to do independently. We started with 15 people, even less, and now there are a lot more. That youthful spirit is special.
“Had I not believed that people would want to settle here, I wouldn’t recruit them. We are looking for fresh energy,” she added. “People are starting to fantasize about new projects to build; my uncle says he wants to reconstruct the old stable that’s been out of action for years.”
The return of the original residents, however, is far off. Grosvirt said that families with children will find it difficult to return next year without the region’s school system in effect. He noted that as long as the war rages on, rocket warning sirens continue, and rehabilitation efforts are ongoing, people will not return.
For construction work to commence, Grosvirt said that a 30 percent deficit in government compensation must be made up for, adding that residents deserve “full coverage for the damage.”
Five-year rehabilitation plan
The October 7 massacre saw the most Jewish bloodshed in a single day since the Holocaust. The brutality of the attacks, which included indiscriminate rape, torture, dismemberment and mutilation, as well as the murder of entire families — some burned alive in their homes — is unprecedented in recent memory.
At the same time, the fierce battles between Israeli forces and the invading terrorists, who had taken over large swaths of territory near the Gaza Strip, led to massive damage to private and public buildings, agricultural lands, infrastructure, and more.
“The Gaza Envelope is now like Yad Vashem [Israel’s national Holocaust museum],” a young volunteer said, referring to the numerous makeshift October 7 memorials put up along Route 232, which runs through the Israeli communities near the Gaza border.
On October 19, the Israeli government formed the Tekuma Authority, tasked with rehabilitating the Gaza periphery and tending to residents who were evacuated from the war zones in the north and south. Residents along the border — even from towns that were not directly affected by the onslaught — departed to state-funded hotels as large IDF forces deployed in the area in preparation for a ground maneuver in the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, 60,000 residents of Israel’s north have also been evacuated amid near-daily attacks by Hezbollah, which the Lebanese terror organization vows to continue until the IDF withdraws from Gaza.
Today, approximately 70% of residents have returned to their homes in the south. The remaining 30%, some 5,700 evacuees, remain in state-funded hotels or have found other interim solutions such as rented apartments or temporarily constructed caravan sites. The government recently extended subsidies for evacuees staying in hotels until August 15. Evacuees who leave the state-funded hotels receive a monthly stipend from the government for living expenses, including rent.
Hebrew media reported that adults and children are compensated NIS 200 and NIS 100 (roughly $50 and $25) per day respectively, which amounts to NIS 18,000 (roughly $4,800) a month for a family of four (in comparison, the cost per family in a hotel is NIS 45,000, or $12,000).
The Tekuma Authority was budgeted with NIS 19 billion ($5 billion) to execute its targets (NIS 1.5 billion, or $400 million, for construction and renovations), and launched a five-year plan for rebuilding the Gaza border region.
“We hope they won’t need us in five years’ time,” said a source authorized to speak for the body, who requested anonymity. “We are not rushing the communities. They experienced trauma, they still have kidnapped members; our role is to accompany them at their pace.”
A short car ride from Kissufim, outside of Kibbutz Be’eri, in which 101 residents were murdered and 11 kidnapped, a woman in a red shirt cleaned plastic tables at a bike shop that also sells cheeses and drinks, one of the rare establishments in the area that is open for business.
She said that “realistically speaking, it will take us at least three years before we move back.” Currently, she is lodging in a temporary residence in Kibbutz Dorot, a 20-minute drive eastward.
In Kfar Aza, another kibbutz that suffered heavy losses, the hot serenity of June and the soft chirping of birds did not temper the scene of destruction. Dozens of ruined homes blackened with soot were visible throughout the kibbutz. Government work to identify the DNA of the deceased continued, all these months after the Hamas onslaught.
Forty-seven towns and cities along the Gaza border have joined the Tekuma Authority’s rehabilitation plan. Towns closest to the border were inflicted with the worst damage on October 7 and require most of the rehabilitation efforts. With the exception of Be’eri, these towns, most of them kibbutzim, are designated as closed military areas, which slows their path to recovery — though people involved in the rehabilitation efforts are allowed to live there. Newly constructed neighborhoods, as an interim solution, are expected to house most of the evacuees of these towns until they can move back to their homes.
The Tekuma Authority source said that while property tax authorities and government compensation funds can normally subsidize up to 70% of buildings’ damage in wartime, the authority will compensate the localities in full, even surpassing the expenses for the damage.
“This week we laid a cornerstone in Kibbutz Be’eri for the new Shikmim neighborhood [where 52 homes will be built]. These communities need to make decisions about how to move forward: which buildings to demolish, which to preserve as memorial sites; these considerations take time,” said the source.
Following the founding Zionists
Not everyone is waiting for government solutions. Uprooted locals have launched their own rehabilitation initiatives, and together with volunteers from Israel and abroad, a cautious sense of renewal is starting to take form in the region.
Kibbutz Urim is situated just six miles from the Gaza Strip border and its citizens were evacuated to the state-funded hotels. Though it remained unscathed during the Hamas onslaught of October 7, the place needed a revamp after IDF troops lodged there for almost six months while the residents were away.
Locals turned to One Heart (Lev Ehad), a nonprofit organization for humanitarian aid. Founded in 2005, the organization is known for its volunteer emergency relief work and has provided aid during the coronavirus pandemic, earthquakes in neighboring countries, and the war in Ukraine.
“After the military’s prolonged stay in Urim, the kibbutz looked very different,” said Shiraz Pascal, One Heart’s manager of Israel’s southern region, including the Gaza periphery. “Its teenagers needed a place for gathering, and they didn’t have it. Our volunteers came in, we raised donations, including a very generous one from Palo Alto Networks, and we renovated the interior and exterior of Urim’s after-school activity center.”
“We don’t just tend to present needs but think about the future — how to enable residents to return to the kibbutzim with proper conditions. We help with renovations, gardening, cleaning, fundraising, moving property, things like that,” she added.
Hezi Gilboa, an IDF reserves fighter who works at One Heart, said the nonprofit also organizes delegations of Jews who come from abroad to volunteer, donate, and help in any way possible.
“We have a deliberate emphasis on working with youth. We know that we can’t just blame the older generation for the present crisis. We have to take responsibility and correct what’s wrong. That’s what the founding Zionists did,” Gilboa said.
Shir Diner, the vice president of One Heart, is optimistic about the future: “The state will not take care of everything, but the good and one-of-a-kind citizens of this country will,” she said.
The organization’s next major goal is the launch of three summer camps across the nation for teen evacuees, and it is currently fundraising to bring the project to fruition.
Now toting guns
Despite being an ex-paratrooper, Haggai Grosvirt was reluctant to carry a gun prior to the Hamas onslaught. “I was skeptical that something [like October 7] could happen,” he said. Now Grosvirt is part of Kibbutz Kissufim’s civil emergency team and carries an M-16 rifle wherever he goes.
His wife returned with him to the kibbutz and works at Kibbutz Be’eri’s printing house. Their daughter, who has been a lifelong member of the kibbutz, has also returned. She is now the manager of Kissufim’s cultural events.
“The Kissufim community is strong. One of our advantages is that our community did not disperse. In fact, we could sit in the hotel Noga lobby and talk more often than we did in the kibbutz. We even brought the kibbutz’s pub with us,” Grosvirt said.
Noga Grosvirt heaped praise on the “famous” Kissufim pub, recalling how locals from all over the region would come for a drink. Although they currently lacked the old equipment of the pub, the young volunteers of Kissufim began bringing in new equipment and reopened it last week.
“We didn’t even know who would come, but members of the kibbutz arrived and everyone was very emotional,” Noga said. “The music, the feeling of normalcy… it was a great experience.”
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think we could rebuild,” Grosvirt said. “I have alternatives. I could leave for my wife’s country of origin. But I am from Kissufim. Not returning would mean we lost the war.”
