2 years after Hamas-led attack, an Israeli town struggles to rebuild

Beeri, Israel – Things changed less than two years ago, when Miri Gad Messika’s parents’ home was rampaged by Hamas-led militants less than three miles from Gaza’s eastern edge, killing more than 130 people and kidnapping 32 others.

The scorch from that day’s fight is still exposed on the walls, and the underbrush of bullet-shattered tiles cracks with Messika’s every step. A stuffed panda doll lay to the side, dusty and discarded on what remained of a kitchen counter.

“We always said this place was 99% heaven and 1% hell,” Messika said, her eyes sweeping across the room before looking out at the destroyed courtyard.

The paradise part was the place he, as a third-generation resident of Beeri, knew all his life for its print and basketball team. Hell? It was a series of periodic rocket attacks that would send residents racing to the safety of their rooms throughout decades of flare-ups between the militant group Hamas and Israel.

“But we knew how to manage it,” he said. “We just went into the safe room and closed the door. That’s it.”

But 10 minutes into Sabit on the fateful Saturday morning of October 7, 2023, Messika realized it was a “historic event.”

Visitors point to photos of loved ones killed at the Nova Music Festival on October 7, 2023.

(Yahel Gazit / Times for)

“We weren’t ready for something like this,” he said.

On Tuesday, the second anniversary of the attack, Messika and others in Israel realigned the hatreds and divisions that triggered the country’s longest war, shattered Israelis’ long-held sense of security and are part of the Israeli-Palistic conflict. The scars fold like the lingering smell of soot in your parents’ house.

Four Beeri residents remain in Hamas hands, but none are alive, Messika said, adding to a tally of 102 people killed – almost 10% of the kibbutz’s population. And while a few hundred residents have returned to live here, most remain in alternative housing and await a reconstruction project to repair the 134 homes destroyed in the attack, including Messika.

Messika is building a new home and is determined that she, her husband, and their three children will continue to live among the community of survivors. But there are days like Tuesday — when she wakes up with a migraine that “never wants to wake up.”

“How do you process the loss of 102 people?” he said.

The Hamas operation began around 6:29 a.m. and featured a barrage of rockets and drones, hillman commandos, and pickup trucks and motorcycles arriving from Gaza in southern Israel. By the time it was over, about 1,200 people had been killed, two-thirds of them civilians, and roughly 250 people had been kidnapped, Israeli officials said.

There is hope here and in the region that there may soon be an exclusion of war. Last week, President Trump presented a 20-point peace plan that has since been accepted—mostly by Hamas and Israel. Final negotiations are continuing in Egypt this week, with the expectation that all hostages – the 20 alive and the 28 thought dead – will be handed over in the coming days.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio pledged U.S. support for Israel and said the peace proposal “offers a historic opportunity to close this dark chapter and create a foundation for lasting peace and security for all.”

But even if that happens, Shosh Sasson, 72, said there’s a sense of something irrevocably shattered.

“I never thought that such an attack would happen here. We always felt safe. But now the ground feels shaky under our feet. Yes, even now, the problem is not over,” he said.

Her husband Yaakov agreed. “It will always be like this for the future. Our neighbors do not want to live amicably with us,” he said.

Nearby, Reim, the site of the Nova Music Festival where nearly 300 concertgoers were killed, visitors walked through a memorial site bearing posters bearing images of the victims and a description of their final moments.

A few meters away, a tour group from the Eagles’ Wings, an organization that brings Christians to visit and support Israel, listened respectfully to 26-year-old Chen Malca as he described his experience recovering from the Nova attack. When he finished, a priest prayed, placing his hand on Malca’s head while the others raised their hands to the sky.

“We pray for the destruction of Hamas and the destruction of evil, just a few meters away from us in Gaza, father,” he said.

As he spoke, an explosion went off in the distance, then another. One of the Eagles’ wing organizers told the group it was “Israeli protest activity in Gaza. It’s nothing to worry about.”

Standing apart from the mass of people was Kati Zohar, 55, who was holding her daughter Bar, 23, in front of a memorial for her daughter Bar, who was killed while trying to warn her that Hamas fighters were nearby, Zohar said.

She and her husband moved to the city of Sderot four months ago, a 20-minute drive away, to be close to their daughter’s memorial.

“Every time I feel like I miss him, I come here and sit with him, have a cup of coffee, smoke a cigarette, talk to him… because this is the last place he is alive and happy,” she said.

Although he was once a happy person, he said, “I’m not happy anymore and I don’t think I will be again.” “A piece of me is missing. “

Her sadness, Zohar said, was matched by disappointment that the Israeli army did not do more to stop the attacks and save her daughter, and anger that the war was still turning against Israel, but it still had not.

The Israeli offensive has so far killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, leaving nearly 170,000 injured and destroying the settlement, even as nearly all Gaza residents have been displaced. The United Nations, Rights Groups, Experts and many Western governments accuse Israel of committing genocide.

Israel denies the accusation, even as it faces unprecedented levels of opprobrium.

“Everyone says Israel committed genocide in Gaza, so what did Gaza do in Israel on October 7, isn’t it genocide?” said the Zohar.

The official added that he does not believe peace with Gaza’s Palestinians is possible. “If they’re not sending missiles, drones, balloons or something else on October 7,” he said.

“We are not trying to disturb them, we are not sending missiles or drones,” he added. “We say, ‘Let’s live in peace, you live in peace.’ But they don’t want that.”

Acled, a conflict monitor, published a report on Tuesday detailing attacks by the Israeli military in Gaza since October 7, 2023. The report tallied more than 11,110 aerial and drone strikes; More than 6,250 bombardments, artillery or missile attacks and nearly 1,500 gunfights.

Beeri resident Messika is similarly disillusioned with the possibility of peace. Before the war, Kibbutzim residents tried to help the Gazans, hiring them for work or taking them for medical treatments. And he remembered his father telling him to go to Gaza to eat falafel — “He used to have the best falafel, he always said” — and buy produce at vegetable markets. However, the concepts of helping Ghazan were born from the pure.

“We know there are no innocent civilians in Gaza…. They hate us,” he said, adding that Trump’s plan to demilitarize Gaza was the right solution. Messika was still debating with other residents whether all the damaged houses should be torn down or some should be preserved as a monument.

“Some say we can’t go back to live near a place like this. It would be like living near Auschwitz,” he said. But for him, it was a matter of turning October 7 into a learning opportunity. Without this, he insisted, all the suffering would be nothing. Although the Kibbutz Council said it was proceeding with the demolitions, it appealed and was awaiting a new decision.

“The next generation, they need to learn and see it with their own eyes and go through it,” he said. “It’s not enough to build a website or a monument. This is history, it’s evidence of what happened to our friends. And I don’t want that to be destroyed.”

About 10 miles away, in Sderot, people have flocked to a mountain on the edge of town that has become a popular vantage point over the years for a look at Gaza, complete with a telescope — cost: Five Shekel — for a closer look at the view. Suddenly, in the distance, a huge cloud of smoke bloomed somewhere beyond the destroyed edge of Gaza’s Nuseirat camp.

Some held up their smartphones to record video. Others gave a grateful nod and praised the “work ethic” of the Israeli military during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. Behind them, children played in the afternoon sun.