In battle-weary Gaza envelope, annual anemone event seeks to make region bloom again

It’s almost February when the Gaza envelope region usually celebrates Darom Adom, the season of red anemones carpeting nearby fields and forests.

The month-long event was canceled last year, after the October 7, 2023, Hamas terror onslaught in which some 1,200 people were slaughtered and 251 taken captive into Gaza, all from the nearby communities.

The anemones haven’t yet flowered this winter due to the lack of rain, but the event will take place, temporarily renamed Darom BaLev, or South at Heart.

Darom Adom is usually held over four weekends with tours, walks, open-air markets, biking and running races, performances and culinary events. However, said organizers, as 90 hostages remain in Gaza, hundreds of families mourn their dead, and displaced residents still haven’t entirely returned home to their communities, this year’s event will not have the usual festivities.

Instead, Darom BaLev will take place over three weeks in February, with a run on behalf of the hostages and a walk to remember those whose lives were lost.

There will be some organized hikes in the local forests and fields, and a small selection of workshops, meals, tastings and available accommodations.

“We were asked last year not to hold the event,” said Doron Ashtan Nachmani, CEO of the Shikma-Bsor Tourism Association that organizes Darom BaLev in partnership with Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael – Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF), the central partner of Darom Adom over the years. “This year, the hostage and bereaved families gave us their blessing, as small businesses need to earn money and move forward.”

The communities of Otef Aza, the Gaza Envelope, are surrounded by fields of flowers during February and March, offering a red-hued contrast to the usual browns and yellows of this desert region.

The region is attempting to return to a semblance of itself, while its roads, highways and community entrances are still covered with banners remembering those killed on October 7 and the hostages who have yet to return.

Refreshment for the soul

A one-day visit to the region, stopping in at some of the highlighted spots of Darom BaLev, is a reminder of the tremendous losses experienced in the south, alongside the efforts to rebuild.

Cupsolla, a coffee cart tucked away in a quiet corner of the Bnei Shimon local authority offices, right past the Beit Kama gas station rest stop, was recently opened by pastry chef Shahar Peleg along with partner Yakir Cohen, a solar energy entrepreneur from Kibbutz Nir Oz.

The former Tel Aviv pastry chef serves fresh sandwiches, such as roasted beets with goat cheese on nutty whole wheat bread or slices of avocado with sprouts alongside her delectable pastries, some topped with fresh strawberries or crushed pistachios, as well as towering cinnamon rolls.

Posters of the remaining hostages and a portrait of Ohad Yahalomi, Yakir’s best friend from Nir Oz who was injured and taken hostage on October 7, are front and center in this quiet corner that includes plenty of tables for diners.

“We opened up because of October 7,” said Peleg, who relocated from Tel Aviv to the region a few years ago. “Yakir wanted something for the soul.”

Each community and business in the area has its share of stories, the heartbreaking moments and situations that took place on October 7 and which changed the people and the region forever.

Strawberry fields forever

At Ori Tutim, Ori and Galit Patkin, former high-tech professionals who left that life 20 years ago to move home to Moshav Yesha and grow strawberries for picking, talked about the last 15 months — and their collection of half a dozen strawberry varietals.

On October 7, Ori Patkin received a frantic call from a neighbor, Dana Silberman-Sitton.

Silberman-Sitton’s farmhand, a Thai national, had been working alone in a field that morning, just three-and-a-half miles from Gaza, and she couldn’t reach him by phone as Hamas terrorists neared their community.

At the time, she was terrified for her parents and for her sister, Shiri Bibas and her young family, all residents of Kibbutz Nir Oz, who were hiding in their sealed rooms as terrorists roamed around their houses.

Patkin went searching for the worker, who ended up being taken hostage in Gaza and freed in late November 2023. Silberman-Sitton’s parents were killed in their Nir Oz home, her sister and two young nephews are still captive in Gaza with no signs of life given, and her brother-in-law, Yarden Bibas was released on February 1, 2025.

Yesha was saved by its security team, said Patkin — three members who protected the kibbutz and were killed defending the community.

“What happened here on October 7 was heroic acts by the security team,” said Patkin. “Three defended us with their bodies and paid with their lives. We’re here because of them.”

After October 7, when the foreign workers they employed left Israel, the Patkins left — along with the rest of the town’s residents. But the Patkins eventually returned, joined by Israeli volunteers who helped pick their strawberries for many months.

“We’ve had to narrow our crop,” said Patkin of his strawberry varietals that are planted hydroponically and include several kinds, including Pineapple, Grape as well as the popular Dorina.

The couple has resumed selling tickets for strawberry picking days on weekends, and in the summer months berries can once again be found for sale.

A living memorial

A carpet of anemones usually blooms in the Kibbutz Re’im parking lot, now known as the site of the Nova desert rave, the outdoor festival where 364 partygoers were murdered, raped and mutilated by marauding Hamas gunmen and another 40 people taken hostage on October 7.

The area has become a familiar memorial site and thousands of people visit each day, walking around the area to visit the public and private memorials, reading the accounts of the police and partygoers who were killed there by Hamas terrorists.

“I get goosebumps all the time as I speak to parents who are doing all they can to memorialize their loved ones,” said Danny Ben David, director of the western Negev for KKL-JNF.

Not all the residents of the Negev appreciate that their home turf is being turned into a memorial site, said Ben David, whose teams are responsible for creating order in the Nova space, laying sidewalks, putting in bathrooms, and cleaning them. “But this is our task right now, and it’s an honor to do it,” he said.

Extending an olive branch

There’s a deep sense of bereavement and sadness throughout the region, even in the communities that weren’t directly attacked on October 7.

At Derech HaZayit in Moshav Zimrat near Netivot, Tamir Cohen had expanded his parents’ original plant nursery to include an expansive kosher cafe set among the flowering plants as well as an olive tree orchard that boasts a 3,000-year-old olive tree that weighs 18 tons and another one that was hit by a Qassam missile and showed new growth years later.

Cohen opened the cafe during the coronavirus pandemic, when locals were looking for some distraction and it became a draw for everyone in the region.

“This was the home for everyone in the Gaza envelope,” said Cohen. “All the kibbutznikim from Be’eri and the other communities would come here once a week. All those names who we know who are hostages? They were all very well known here.”

Hamas terrorists didn’t invade Moshav Zimrat on October 7, and residents were evacuated to Eilat. Reservists bunked down in Cohen’s nursery until a few months ago when Cohen and his family returned, now serving far fewer breakfasts and lunches than before October 7.

Still, he said, “We don’t look back, only forward. Someone asked me if it’s scary here, and it’s absurd — you guys in Tel Aviv have had more sirens in the last year than we have.”

Cue the meat

Another dining option in the area is Patagonia in Kibbutz Or Haner, an Argentinian eatery that specializes in barbecued meats, fresh salads and empanadas, palm-size fried dough pockets filled with mushrooms or chopped meat.

Owner Ariel Segerman noted that it was Kibbutz Kfar Aza resident and local council head Ofer Libstein who first came up with the initial concept of Darom Adom. Libstein was killed defending his kibbutz on October 7.

“Everyone knows everyone here,” said Segerman, whose waitstaff once included Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher, the hostages recently released from captivity. “Every Israeli should come to this area this year, just like we travel to the north now to support that area.”

Raising a glass in honor of the ones lost

There are several wineries in development in this Negev pocket, and the Oren Winery in Moshav Netiv Ha’asara — named for Oren Stern, killed on October 7 as he defended his town — is opening for Darom BaLev.

Oren and his brother Eyal Stern had just completed construction on their small, boutique winery two weeks before October 7, planning to call it Stern Winery.

It’s now a working winery and a memorial to Oren, who lived next door to Eyal and his family and was like a second father to their four kids, said Eyal’s sister-in-law, Mali Stern, who grew up in Netiv Ha’asara.

On October 7, as Oren joined the emergency squad to battle Hamas terrorists, the Sterns’ eldest son was called up to fight Hamas in Gaza. The family was evacuated with the rest of the residents to Tel Aviv, only returning home this past October.

Oren’s well-used bicycle, surfboards and kayak decorate the outside of the winery, along with his vintage Jeep and convertible.

Eyal is also making beer in his brother’s memory, called Mookis, his brother’s nickname, and it sits in barrels near the barrels of Shiraz and Merlot, Malbec and Rose, each made with grapes purchased from several Israeli wineries.

“There’s so much sadness in the family,” said Mali, looking around at her kids and her son’s girlfriend, whose father and only sister were killed at home in Kibbutz Nirim on that day. Her parents, founders of Netiv Ha’asara, haven’t returned home yet because it’s too sad for them.

“She’s like my fifth child now,” said Mali of her son’s girlfriend.

“And we’ve got this,” she added, hands pointed toward the airy wine-tasting space set in their backyard, with a volleyball court in the yard below.