Post-Oct. 7 return home of 3 Gaza border towns further delayed by still-ongoing war

The return of residents of three Gaza border communities to their homes has been further delayed because of the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, after being displaced for over a year now.

Two kibbutzim, Sufa and Nir Yitzhak, in the south of the so-called Tekuma area, as well as Moshav Netiv Ha’asara, in the area’s north, had previously been due to return home on Sunday.

However, the Israel Defense Forces has not permitted the move, which was rescheduled for December 31.

The government will continue to pay for residents in their temporary accommodations.

Of the Gaza border evacuees who cannot go home — either because the communities are not safe or their infrastructure was too badly damaged by the Hamas terror invasion and onslaught of October 7 last year — most are being housed in temporary neighborhoods built for them in the Negev region of southern Israel.

Most of Kibbutz Kfar Aza has already moved to Kibbutz Ruhama. Kibbutz Be’eri is being hosted in Kibbutz Hatzerim; a neighborhood has been built in Omer, near Beersheba, for Kibbutz Kissufim residents; and Kibbutz Holit is being accommodated at Kibbutz Revivim. Kibbutz Nahal Oz has been living in Kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek in northern Israel for some time. Kibbutz Nir Oz members have been in state-paid apartments in the southern city of Kiryat Gat since January.

Holit, Kissufim, and Nahal Oz are supposed to return to their renovated hometowns in the summer of 2025.

Be’eri, Kfar Aza, and Nir Oz, the communities worst damaged by Hamas’s October killing spree — during which some 1,200 were murdered and 251 were kidnapped to the Gaza Strip — are not expected to return home before summer 2026, according to the Tekuma Authority, which is facilitating the reconstruction of the devastated region.