Kibbutz Nir Oz and state agree on $95 million budget to rebuild devastated community
Plan, expected to be approved by members’ assembly in coming days, will include building of new neighborhood for first returnees to the community worst-hit on Oct. 7
Sue Surkes is The Times of Israel's environment reporter
The management of Kibbutz Nir Oz reached an agreement with the state on Tuesday night for a plan to invest over NIS 350 million ($95 million) in rehabilitating and redeveloping the community.
The plan is expected to be approved in the coming days by the kibbutz members’ assembly.
The kibbutz was largely destroyed on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists entered all but six of over 200 homes in the small community and either murdered or kidnapped one of every four residents — 117 people out of some 400. Of those abducted, 14 are still being held in Gaza, just five of them believed alive.
Nir Oz is the last of 13 communities to agree on a rehabilitation plan with the Tekuma Directorate and the Finance Ministry. Among other things, the plan includes building community infrastructure and a new neighborhood, named “Chalutz” or “Pioneer,” for the first group of residents who return.
Tekuma Director Aviad Friedman, in the job for just three weeks, told a media briefing Wednesday: “We will add whatever is needed to complete the building. Until there is a bill of quantities, we can’t know exactly how much it will cost. There will be enough money to rebuild Nir Oz in this agreement.”
Asked why it had taken so long to reach a deal after Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich visited the kibbutz in November 2024, he said one of the reasons was that the state budget was unknown. It was passed on March 25.
He added that without criticizing those who visited before him, it was not enough to meet with the kibbutz once a week, and that several temporary directors had preceded him.
“I believe the right thing is to work intensively until the thing is finished,” he said, adding that since starting the job, he had spent more time with Nir Oz than with his wife.
“We all had to sit together for all those hours and get through obstacles to get to the agreement,” he said.
Reaching the agreement had required creativity, he went on. KKL-JNF Jewish National Fund had agreed to give money and donations to Nir Oz would be put into the pot too.
Before the October 7 onslaught, there were 229 housing units on Nir Oz.
Rebuilding will be done in three stages, starting with 23 units for the “Pioneer” neighborhood. Friedman said it was too early to tell how many buildings would need demolishing, as each house had to be examined first. He promised an answer by Independence Day on May 1, when he hopes a cornerstone will be laid at the kibbutz.
But he said he already envisages a second stage, which would take the total number of housing units to 400.
He could not say how the budget broke down, explaining that funding calls would determine some elements and that some things had not yet been signed.
Regarding details about public buildings, he said the only thing decided was that the kindergarten would move to the area vacated by the poultry sheds.
Freidman said the kibbutz members themselves had not all decided whether they would return, adding that 33 percent of the members (as opposed to people renting housing) had been murdered.
On the timetable for rebuilding, he said the kibbutz had to vote on the deal, and that it had to pass a committee he chaired at the Tekuma Directorate. After that, detailed work would begin.
Revealing that he and his wife Hanna were personal friends of the Dekel-Chen family, whose son Sagui was released from Hamas captivity in February, he said that one Friday last month, he and his wife visited Nir Oz and were taken on a three to four hour tour by an 87-year-old kibbutz member in his golf cart.
He went on: “He took Hanna’s hand and said, ‘Tell your husband I must live until I can see the wheat growing again.’ The people of Nir Oz are role models. They are so courageous, wanting to go back after what they went through.”
But the community’s rehabilitation would not be complete until the remaining live hostages and the bodies of hostages were returned home, he said.
Earlier on Wednesday, a joint statement from Tekuma, the Finance Ministry and MK Ze’ev Elkin, the minister in charge of rehabilitating the southern and northern borders, said the Tekuma Directorate would make an advance payment for the early planning of the new neighborhood, to allow construction to begin as soon as possible.
The kibbutz community is currently living in the southern city of Kiryat Gat.
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