Just beyond the bright yellow entrance gates to Kibbutz Be’eri, on a patch of land that once housed a cowshed and dairy farm, a new neighborhood is taking shape, rising from the ashes of one of the communities hardest hit by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre.
Two years after that terror-filled day, the kibbutz, which sits less than four kilometers (three miles) from Gaza, is rebuilding and rehabilitating itself – slowly.
As bulldozers and laborers lay the foundations of new homes, the evacuated residents continue to mourn the more than 100 people killed that day and fight for the return of the kidnapped, while they witness the continued fighting just a few kilometers away inside Gaza.
“Would you want to live here while Hamas is still present there,” Danny Majzner, a longtime kibbutz member who made aliyah as a child from Australia, told The Jerusalem Report in a recent interview, gesturing toward the Palestinian territory.
He said his family, despite a longing to return, is not ready to go back just yet.
‘No one to protect us’
“Before October 7, this place was 90% paradise and 10% hell… because we had the rounds of fighting with Hamas since 2005,” said Majzner, sporting a black T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Build Be’eri Better” and a tattoo of that fateful date etched on the back of his left leg.
“We lived beside Hamas, but we felt safe,” continued the 64-year-old.
“What is the difference between the 6th of October, 2023, and the 8th of October, 2023? The difference is that before, we trusted the IDF; but on the 7th of October, no one was there for us.”
Two years later, Majzner said he still asks himself “500 times a day… where was the army?”
“There was no one there for us on October 7 – absolutely no army, no air force, no one to protect us. When our ancestors came here in 1946 to settle this mega desert, without water, without power, without anything – just Arabs – they believed in settling this place,” he said.
“They signed a contract, an unwritten, unspoken contract, with the State of Israel, even before it was born, to work the land; and in exchange, the state would protect them. Everything was cool up until the 7th of October, but that contract was breached by someone… and it wasn’t us,” Majzner stated.
Return to life
While the bitterness and sadness over the events of October 7 still hang heavily in the air, there are signs that Kibbutz Be’eri is attempting to return to life.
On two sites, just outside the kibbutz’s perimeter fence – leading up to the main Route 232 highway – some 50 new homes are already close to completion. Bulldozers flatten the ground in another area nearby in preparation for 70 more dwellings.
In total, 140 homes were declared a “total loss.” Some were destroyed by Hamas’s elite Nukhba forces as they rampaged through the kibbutz, and others were damaged in the crossfire when the IDF finally arrived to confront them.
In the heart of the kibbutz, the home of Pessi Cohen, where a dozen or so civilians were killed in a standoff between the army and Hamas terrorists has been torn down to make way for several new residences.
Opposite, the kibbutz dining room has returned to full operation, serving three meals a day to the handful of kibbutz members who have returned home, as well as the hundreds of construction workers rebuilding the community.
Today, about 60 kibbutz members have made their way back. The majority of the others remain in temporary housing in Kibbutz Hatzerim, a 45-minute drive away but some they return daily to work in Be’eri’s well-known printing factory or one of its agricultural enterprises.
Founded in 1946 as part of the Jewish Agency’s “11 points in the Negev plan,” Kibbutz Be’eri was named for Berl Katznelson, a founding father of Labor Zionism, whose nickname was Be’eri.
Prior to October 7, Be’eri was one of Israel’s largest, most prosperous kibbutzim, still boasting a communal style of living. That changed on October 7 when more than 100 of its 1,150 members were murdered and 32 people, which included women, children, and the elderly, were taken hostage to Gaza.
Most of the 251 people kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 have been returned to Israel over the past two years, either during ceasefire deals or rescued by the IDF, but, as of writing this, four Be’eri residents still remain in Gaza: Meny Godard, 73; Sahar Baruch, 24; Yossi Sharabi, 53; and Dror Or, 48. All have been declared dead by Israeli authorities.
Posters with their faces, and those of others who were murdered, are displayed on homes in the kibbutz. The Kerem neighborhood, which is situated closest to the border fence – and to Gaza – bears the worst scars.
Gutted homes with walls blackened by fire and artillery shells remain standing, surrounded by overgrown gardens that have not been tended to since October 6, 2023.
Inside the hollow structures where people once lived, personal belongings remain where they fell in kitchens, living rooms, and bedrooms. Bullet holes in walls, doors melted by fire, and shattered windows are further testament to the terror that was waged here.
The distant sounds of artillery fire and explosions can be heard more clearly in this neighborhood – a continual reminder that despite the passage of time, the war is still raging not too far away.
“The kibbutz has not yet made a decision about what to do with these homes,” said Majzner, who now spends much of his time giving tours of the kibbutz to groups of students from the US, the UK, Australia, and elsewhere.
He added, “We need to decide whether to take everything down or to leave something here as a reminder of what happened for future generations. I think we need to leave something.”
He is in favor of preserving at least two homes as a testament to that day. As for what happens to the rest of the eerily empty neighborhood, whether it should be re-inhabited or turned into open space, he does not know – further evidence that the kibbutzniks still have a way to go before they can fully rehabilitate.
Trying to move on
In the devastated neighborhood, kibbutz member Avida Bachar, a good friend of Majzner’s, was guiding a group of soldiers through the ruins of his home.
Inside the blackened living room, mismatched chairs were pulled into a circle. There, Bachar recalled his personal story of survival. He was hiding in his safe room with his family when the terrorists began firing rounds inside. His wife and son were killed; he and his daughter were severely wounded.
“For 20 years, we thought the enemy wanted to be like us, that they wanted what we wanted,” Bachar told the group, facing the direction of Gaza.
“But,” he continued, “they are a bitter enemy, and they have one goal – to get us out…None of them there are innocent. They want to take over our land, and they don’t care if we are Jews or not… They don’t care if we are in Be’eri, Judea and Samaria, or Tel Aviv – they want this land.”
As part of his tour of the kibbutz, Majzner, made similar points. In the wrecked home of renowned peace activist Vivian Silver, he described how it took forensic experts more than three weeks to identify her remains among the ashes.
“She was murdered by the very people she tried to help,” he said of the Canadian-Israeli.
Majzner has his own story from October 7. Like many of his friends, he took shelter in his safe room as terrorists – and later civilians from Gaza – infiltrated the kibbutz, rampaging and pillaging, murdering and raping.
He heard their gunfire and wild shouts as they passed by his window, but he was somehow spared. However, his sister who lived on the other side of the kibbutz was not.
“She was found murdered in her home; killed by bullets,” Mazjner said, recalling in a sad voice how he spoke to her just minutes before terrorists entered her home and realized he could do nothing to save her.
Finding solace
He said he finds solace in talking to groups from abroad about what took place in his community and was about to head to Australia for a speaking tour.
Despite the horrors that he and his friends endured, Mazjner said he believed that eventually at least 80 percent of the members will return to live there.
“People ask me why I want to come back here,” he said. “I say, ‘I’ve got a house. I’ve got my granddaughter, but I don’t have my home.’
“My home is here, on Kibbutz Be’eri; and unless something dramatic happens, I really want to come back and build my dream home here. Hopefully, it will be my last home. I’ve moved four times in the last year and a half, and I don’t want to move anymore.”
Asked when that might happen, Mazjner was uncertain. It will only happen once he and other kibbutz members feel that the threat from Hamas, and other radicals in Gaza, is completely removed.■