Two years ago, Noam and Yoed Mash took leave of the crowded central city of Ramat Gan and moved with their two young daughters to Kibbutz Re’im, near the Gaza border in southern Israel.
“We loved the area, we wanted the girls to have a kibbutz education, and we were looking for a community,” recalled Noam, 36, an art therapist. “We came here after a lot of research.”
That move was cut violently short on October 7 when some 80 Hamas terrorists invaded the kibbutz, murdering seven people and kidnapping four. The latter were released in November. In addition, 12 members of the IDF and the police were killed during battles in Re’im, some of which were waged in the Mashes’ neighborhood, as the family hid.
The terrorists were among thousands of gunmen who poured through the Gaza border on that black Saturday before executing nearly 1,200 people. They also kidnapped 251 back to the coastal enclave, of whom 97 are believed to still be there, some of them confirmed dead.
It took the army 10 hours to reach Re’im.
According to kibbutz secretary Zohar Mizrahi, many more gunmen were supposed to storm Re’im but were diverted to the Supernova festival nearby, where they massacred 360 partygoers.
The now infamous Route 232, which connects Kibbutz Re’im to the outside world, was taken over by gunmen and transformed into a graveyard of dead bodies and burned-out cars.
The Mash family was evacuated with the rest of the community to a hotel in Eilat, and then to two residential blocks in south Tel Aviv.
“It was good for a time,” recalled Noam, sitting on the porch of her temporary home back at Re’im — construction of their permanent home was due to start in the summer. “But slowly, the noise and the crowding get to you.”
Yoed, part of the kibbutz security team, was spending weekdays at Re’im as part of his military reserve duty.
“The kids were upset with him for not being there and took it out on me, ” said Noam.
She continued, “We would have returned in the winter, but decided it was better to be back for the start of the school year.”
Noam, chair of the kibbutz education committee, and Yoed returned to Re’im in late August with only a handful of other families with small children.
In addition to opening the swimming pool and the mini-market, the kibbutz has opened a nursery for children aged up to three. Noam takes Mila to a kindergarten in Moshav Ein Habesor, while Dar has started first grade next to Kibbutz Magen, at one of three regional elementary schools run by the local authority. Dropping them off means a 15- to 20-minute drive south.
‘This is a test. If it doesn’t succeed, we’ll be on a one-way ticket out of here’
“We deliberated,” recalled Noam. “You hear the sounds of war here. I feel 90% safe because of what Yoed tells me. We made the decision, and I’m at peace with it. Something within me has relaxed. But this is a test. If it doesn’t succeed, we’ll be on a one-way ticket out of here.”
Staying put in Tel Aviv
By contrast, Noa Ahrak, her husband Oran (both 39), and their three children Dror (9), Negev (7), and Gefen (four) are staying put in Tel Aviv.
“The return to Re’im will occur in stages when families feel it’s right for them,” Noa said. “We are one of the last communities not to return [to the Gaza border area].”
She estimated that 70% of the community and most of those with children aged three to seventh grade were in Tel Aviv, pointing out that officially, the kibbutz was still in its interim location, with state-funded support.
The Tekuma Administration has promised to provide this support through the end of December.
The Ahraks, who grew up in the Gaza border region, moved to Re’im nearly a decade ago and have been kibbutz members for nearly two years. They started to build a permanent home in September 2023.
Oran, who normally works for the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and, like Yoed, is on the kibbutz security team, spends part of the week at Reim. Noa, who worked as a lawyer in the southern city of Beersheba until October 7, accepted the role of kibbutz community manager in Tel Aviv in March.
She explained that the community was still functioning as a kibbutz. The restored old building between the complex’s two residential blocks contained a dining room, a clinic, two kindergartens (one of which Gefen attends), and offices.
Dror and Negev walk to the nearby School for Nature and Society, returned for lunch, and have activities until 4 p.m.
“The children want to return to the kibbutz,” she said. “We told them we’ll return, but the schools aren’t ready. It’s not bad from them here, but they feel temporary.”
She said her older kids were continuing with the same classes and teachers, so it was “natural” to let them carry on there, rather than move them to a school near Re’im that was just restarting and to a kibbutz that was not yet rehabilitated.
“Going home and being with their father may be more important than finishing the new school year here,” said Noa. “I’m not saying we won’t return in January, but we need routine, stability, and security. We need the state to fulfill its basic commitments so we can repair and rebuild the kibbutz as it was.”
A bullet hole in the window
The Tekuma Authority said that the communities were leading the process of rebuilding their communities and homes as they saw fit and with state funds.
Because of battles that raged on October 7, “We have a bullet hole in the window and a broken door,” said Noa.
‘They took a year to map and appraise the damage, then argued about the figures. The bureaucracy of government departments makes it hard to give certainty to the community’
“It’s like most places in the kibbutz. I thought things would be different now. There’s a gap between the huge budgets the state discussed at the start and what’s happening on the ground,” she said. “They took a year to map and appraise the damage, then argued about the figures. The bureaucracy of government departments makes it hard to give certainty to the community.”
Kibbutz Re’im had submitted a rehabilitation plan that is currently being reviewed, the authority said in a statement.
It continued, “We are working with the kibbutz to meet the timetables that will allow the residents to return by the end of 2024 and to prioritize the work in the rehabilitation plan accordingly. ”
The authority said it would allow “essential, urgent work” to be carried out before the rehabilitation plan was approved to speed things up.
‘It’s home’
Most returnees have middle and high school children who started the new academic year at the regional school and felt it important to be with their friends from other area settlements.
Among them is the Gabay family, whose son, Amit, was murdered on October 7 in his apartment in the young people’s section of the kibbutz.
‘It’s about feeling safe, and they don’t feel safe’
In the kibbutz dining hall, which currently provides lunch five times a week, Amit’s father, Noam, who was born in the kibbutz and serves on the security team, said he understood why others had not yet returned.
“It’s about feeling safe, and they don’t feel safe,” he said.
Last month, Noam Gabay brought his wife, Adi, and two children, Ofri, 16, and Omer, 7, back for good.
“It’s our home,” he said when asked why, adding that Ofri had wanted to return several months ago to be with her friends.
Amit is buried on the kibbutz. His house has already been demolished. According to Zohar Mizrahi, there was a consensus against leaving the damaged buildings as memorials.
“We’ll build our memorial,” she said.
Around 435 people lived in this paradise of shady lawns, trees, and flowers until October 7.
A week after the massacre, the kibbutz farmers returned (minus their Thai workers), and after three weeks, the two factories reopened. Workers spent the weekdays on the kibbutz and returned to their families at weekends.
However, a few kibbutz members returned because they were unwilling to live in Tel Aviv.
Among them is artist Itamar Mizrachi, 25, who was pruning in the garden when this reporter visited.
“The grass was my height,” he laughed. “I’m covered in blisters.”
Bearded and barefoot, with a chestful of tattoos, Mizrachi grew up at Re’im, left to work and travel, and returned in August 2023. He initially evacuated to Eilat with the rest of the community, but, unwilling to move to Tel Aviv, returned to the kibbutz in January to house-sit for friends.
Recently, he moved into the home of his late grandmother, Varda Harmati, who was murdered on October 7. When this reporter visited, he had just completed 12 “sessions” of creation.
He was sleeping in Harmati’s bed and storing his large painted creations on the floor of the protected room in which Harmati died.
Cuttings of sage and rosemary were laid on a table to be burned in the evening when friends came. “It’s to expel the bad spirits,” he explained.
The walls were covered in Harmati’s artistic works. The house was unchanged, Mizrahi said.
Mizrahi had not planned his future, saying, “For the time being, I’m here, creating.”
But he said his younger brother Roi, currently in Tel Aviv, had no plans to return. The IDF bombed the terrorists who were hiding next to the protected room where Roi was hiding on October 7.
Now recovered from the injuries he sustained on that day, Roi attended Harmati’s funeral and an event marking what would have been her 82nd birthday, but, said Mizrahi, “that was it.”
