Families leave communities near Gaza amid mortar fire

The few families who stayed behind in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, just two kilometers from the Gaza border, throughout Operation Protective Edge have now left, a day after four-year-old Daniel Tragerman was killed when a mortar shell landed outside his home in a kibbutz in the Sha’ar Hanegev Region.

Daniel’s funeral will be held tomorrow at 9 a.m. at the Pitchat Shalom cemetery in the northern Negev.

By this afternoon, no families with children remained in the kibbutz, according to the community’s spokeswoman.

Of the nearly 360 ​​members of Nahal Oz, only about 90 people, almost all of them kibbutz employees, remained, Ynet reported.

In nearby Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha (some 25 km south of Nahal Oz), families with young children and the elderly have all left as well.

Amid the incessant rocket and mortar fire since indirect truce talks between Israel, Hamas and other Gaza-based terror groups broke down on Tuesday, residents in southern Israel say they can no longer stay living in their communities.

Many southern residents had come back following a temporary truce that lasted six days, and at the urging of the military and the government two weeks ago.

The residents of Nahal Oz have criticized the government for what they say is its inaction, a month and a half after the operation began.

“We are disappointed that the reality on the ground has not changed,” the residents said in a statement.

“The [government] instruction to return to our homes does not correspond with the reality since the rockets and mortars are still being fired. We live with a great degree of uncertainty,” writes Kibbutz spokeswoman Yenina Barnea.

Another kibbutz resident had some harsher words for the authorities, accusing them of “leading us like a herd, they said everything was ok.”

“We will come back when we feel safer,” Selba Bermovitz tells Ynet.