By Michal Yaakov Itzhaki and Eli Berlzon
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Avida Bachar runs his hands across the steel surface of a door that is pierced with bullet holes and is still stained by his son Carmel’s blood, nearly a year after the 15-year-old was killed during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel.
Bachar also lost his wife Dana that day, when the militants stormed through their home at Kibbutz Be’eri, setting fire to houses and killing or abducting men, women and children. In all, the kibbutz, a tight-knit community just three miles (five km) from Gaza, lost about a tenth of its roughly 1,000 residents.
Bachar’s family, like most others on the kibbutz, took shelter in the safe room when Hamas started firing rockets from Gaza into Israel that morning.
But kibbutz safe rooms were built to protect residents against rockets – not a ground assault by dozens of heavily armed militants who shot through the steel door, threw grenades through the window and set Bachar’s home ablaze.
“I miss them endlessly,” 51-year-old Bachar said of his wife and son. “(The pain) doesn’t fade or subside. It’s strong, all the time.”
But Bachar, who lost a leg in the attack, remains hopeful that Kibbutz Be’eri can still heal in time. He is sustained in his optimism by his daughter Hadar, now 14, who was wounded in the attack.
“Hadar is okay. Hadar is 10 times stronger than me. Kids see the here and now. I imagine Hadar getting married in a few years without her mother by her side and I fall apart,” he added.
Bachar returned to Be’eri after a six-month hospitalisation and is now busy overseeing the jojoba harvest and getting used to his prosthetic leg. “In two weeks we start to harvest the avocado,” he said, donning an ‘I Love Be’eri’ T-shirt.
SAFE HAVEN
Be’eri was established in 1946 with the aim of creating a collective, egalitarian farming community. Its main source of income these days is its print shop, which was back up and running just weeks after the Hamas attack.
In the aftermath of Oct. 7, most of its surviving residents were evacuated to a hotel by the Dead Sea. A few have now gone back to live on the kibbutz, where many houses still stand damaged by the grenades and gunfire, ransacked, or burnt.
“This place will flourish again and we will recover with it. If I fast-forward three or four years ahead, I have no doubt we will be in a better place,” said Bachar.
Meanwhile, his daughter Hadar is staying with her aunt, until Bachar can join her, at the temporary residence being built for the community in Hatzerim, a kibbutz in the Negev desert, around 18 miles (29 km) away.
Close to 70% of Kibbutz Be’eri’s surviving population, mostly families, have moved to Hatzerim since the start of the school year in September, said Iftah Celniker, Be’eri’s community director.
Keeping the community together while uprooted has been their main challenge, said Celniker. But the ties between the kibbutz members remain strong while the houses in Be’eri are being torn down and rebuilt.
It could take many months before they all go back to Be’eri. “It will take time not only to build Be’eri but to build the confidence of it being a safe haven,” said Celniker.
Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and took some 250 hostages in their Oct. 7 rampage, according to Israeli tallies, prompting an Israeli military offensive in which Gaza health officials say more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed.
‘OUR PLACE TO FIGHT FOR’
Anger still smoulders among Be’eri residents towards the Israeli army for failing to protect their kibbutz and towards the government, which many say is not doing enough to bring back the 101 hostages still held in Gaza, at least half of whom are believed to be still alive. The militants took 10 hostages from Be’eri, of whom at least three are thought to be still alive.
One of the slain hostages from Be’eri is Carmel Gat, 40, whose body was found in a Hamas tunnel in southern Gaza with five other hostages. The gunmen killed the six people when they spotted Israeli soldiers in the vicinity, authorities said.
Gat had survived in captivity until the end of August. Hostages who had been with her and were released during a brief November truce said she had helped them get through their time in captivity with yoga and meditation.
Gat’s mother Kinneret was killed by Hamas on Oct. 7 in the kibbutz. Her sister-in-law was kidnapped and released in November.
A banner with a photo of a smiling Carmel hangs over the wreckage of the family home at Be’eri, as her younger brother Or sifts through the family belongings in the ravaged house.
Outside, a pomegranate hangs off a tree with no one to pick it. The fruit is a traditional food of the Jewish new year which begins on Thursday. Despite his family’s ordeal, Or can still see a future in which he one day raises a family in Be’eri.
“Our safety will never be the same again but this is the place for all of our life, for the happiest moments and the horrible moments – this is our place to live in, our place to fight for,” Or Gat said.
(Additional reporting and writing by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Gareth Jones)
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