“The ideology of the people who lived here was about peace and coexistence; no one had any intention of occupying any land,” Dotan Nave told journalists as led them around Kibbutz Be’eri on the eve of the first anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attacks.
“This place was barren when my grandma first came here decades ago,” he said.
Nave, 35, is a survivor of the October 7 massacre in Be’eri. He survived by sheltering in a protected space with his wife and children for 19 hours.
Before October 7, 2023, the kibbutz had around 1,000 residents, and was one of the largest villages in the Gaza border region.
At least 102 people were murdered in Be’eri that day, and 32 were abducted to Gaza. Ten of them remain in captivity.
Nave’s 76-year-old father, Mordechai Nave, and Mordechai’s 69-year-old partner, Yona Fricker, were among those who lost their lives in the kibbutz on that black Saturday.
Mordechai, who managed some agricultural lands in the village, worked closely with Palestinian laborers from Gaza for 20 years before he retired. “After he retired, some even came to visit him here; they were like friends,” his son said.
Revival
Be’eri Printers, the kibbutz’s main source of income, defiantly resumed operations just 10 days after the Hamas attack. But other than the print shop’s employees, these days journalists and soldiers guarding the area are about the only people you come across in Be’eri.
For the past year the kibbutz has remained abandoned of its residents, with barely standing burned houses serving as a reminder of the atrocities that transpired there. Giant posters of the hostages and those who were killed cover vast parts of the village.
Despite small-scale construction projects slowly kicking off, with the hopes of reviving the kibbutz, Nave says true revival will be possible only when the remaining hostages are released from Gaza.
“We need to get our people back before we even try to come back and live here again,” he told the visitors.
According to Nave, another reason that the coveted revival may take a long time is the disintegration of the residents’ personal sense of security, being situated so close to the Gaza border.
“I felt very safe here before October 7,” said Nave.
“Now, we can’t really trust the people of Gaza anymore. It’s really hard to trust someone who supports what has been done here,” he added, pointing to a half-destroyed, scorched house nearby.
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