Court rejects Nahal Oz residents’ petition against government push to send them home

The High Court of Justice on Tuesday rejected a petition filed by the residents of Kibbutz Nahal Oz against the government’s decision to end state funding for the temporary housing they have been living in since the October 7, 2023, Hamas assault.

The decision to cut off state funding will effectively compel the residents of the Gaza border community to return to their homes, which many of them feel is not yet safe to do as the war continues to rage in Gaza just a few hundred meters away.

In the petition filed earlier this month, the residents argued that the sounds of war were still clearly audible from the kibbutz, and that the continuing danger — including occasional stray rounds hitting the community — impacted their sense of security and mental health in the wake of the trauma they suffered during the attack on their homes.

In light of this, they asked the court to issue a temporary stay on the government decision until the question is settled on whether an arrangement will be made for funding until the end of the war.

Some 120 kibbutz members signed the petition, among them several whose family members were killed or kidnapped during the Hamas attack.

In their decision on Tuesday, justices Daphne Barak-Erez, Ruth Ronen, and Yechiel Kasher explained that they were rejecting the petition because the matter was “a clear policy issue” within the government’s purview, and therefore was not for the court to intervene in.

They however acknowledged the experiences of the kibbutz residents and their reasons for filing the petition.

“The plight of the kibbutz members is a real plight,” the decision read. “Along with this, it cannot be ignored that other localities and other residents of the Gaza envelope have also experienced — and are still experiencing — these kinds of difficulties.”

But, they said, “as judges sitting in court, we are not free to decide as we please. We must decide, from a legal perspective, whether there is a basis for judicial intervention in the decisions that were made.”

The court noted that the state’s position was that if the court accepted the Nahal Oz residents’ petition, it would create inequality, as they would continue to receive state funds for temporary housing while residents of other Gaza border communities also impacted by the government’s decision would not.

While the court ultimately chose to throw out the petition, Barak-Erez said that the discussions on the matter had shed light on “certain changes that could help Kibbutz Nahal Oz and its residents, and even other residents of the Gaza envelope, even if not fully.”

Changes that the court had suggested, while not enforceable, could be adopted by the government if it deemed them appropriate.

One such change raised by the court and ultimately adopted by the government was a decision to continue to provide means-based rental assistance to any Gaza border resident who chooses to continue to reside elsewhere after the agreed-upon return date.

Barak-Erez said that she hoped “everything possible will be done to help Kibbutz Nahal Oz and its members, for their benefit and for the benefit of the entire country.”

“The end of the discussion on the petition is not the end of the road to returning home. It is only the beginning,” she said.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas led thousands of terrorists who stormed across the border, massacred some 1,200 people, and took 251 hostages to Gaza. An IDF probe into the attack on Kibbutz Nahal Oz found that some 180 terrorists entered the community, murdered 14 of its residents, and abducted seven.

One of the petitioner was Lishay Miran Lavi, wife of Omri Miran, who is held captive in Gaza.

She wrote in the petition that it was not possible “to conduct a normal life 800 meters from the border with Gaza, when Omri and another 49 hostages are languishing and suffering in the Hamas tunnels, and the sounds of explosions shake every home in the community.”

“Every morning they [the government] again explains to us that the war is not over and we are not going back to normal, so this definitely should be the case in regard to our homes, close to Gaza,” she wrote.

Immediately after the Hamas invasion, the state evacuated 46 rural communities and the city of Sderot — all of which fall within seven kilometers (4.3 miles) of the Gaza border.

By the end of May 2025, the Tekuma Directorate, which is overseeing rehabilitation, said that 92 percent of the population had returned to their homes.

Sue Surkes contributed to this report.