Hamas made them flee their homes, but Israeli evacuees vow to return

Alongside the many stories of loss, horrors, and devastation wreaked on Gaza border communities during Hamas’s merciless and sudden terrorist attack on October 7, some stories have had better endings. These tales of human bravery and kindness are sure to bring a smile to the lips of those who hear them. More and more such anecdotes that attest to the strength of the human spirit emerge as the country continues to reel from the deadliest attack it has known in its entire brief history, one month into the ongoing war.

One such story is that of Camille and Nitza. Camille – a foreign worker who arrived in Israel from the Philippines five year ago – has been residing in Kibbutz Nirim ever since and taking care of Nitza, a 95-year-old resident of the village, which is located near the border with Gaza, some seven kilometers east of Khan Yunis.

In the morning of the attack, around 200 armed Hamas terrorists stormed the kibbutz, sowing ruin everywhere, wounding dozens and killing at least five of Nirim’s members. Local media have reported that at around 8 a.m., Camille heard the terrorists approach the house and tried to shutter the window of the safe room to no avail. Two days after the attack Camille was set to fly home and visit her family; for that purpose, she kept in her purse around NIS 1,500 which she had saved up and planned to give to her son. Without a moment’s hesitation, the brave custodian offered the terrorists her money and told them to take everything she had except for her airplane ticket, begging them to spare the life of the elderly woman she had been tending to for years. Miraculously, they agreed. For hours thereafter, Camille is reported to have lain in bed with Nitza. She held her close, embracing her and promising not to leave.

Forty-seven-year-old Bar Heffetz, one of Nitza’s grandsons, was born in the kibbutz and has been living there almost his entire life. Both his father and grandfather were also farmers who worked the lands, turning them into the prosperous agricultural plots that they are today. The farmer and agronomist spoke to The Jerusalem Post this week from Nirim, having returned last weekend to carry out his milking duty at the cowshed.

Heffetz, his grandmother, her caretaker, and all of his family members represent a handful of the estimated 130,000 people who were forced to evacuate their homes in the South and North during the war, effectively becoming internally displaced.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve been here since the attack,” he says. “I already came back for several hours about two weeks ago, to take some of my belongings and those of other members of the kibbutz who had been evacuated in a matter of hours and had to leave everything behind,” Heffetz explains.

Apart from him, he says, there are some seven other kibbutz members who have returned to carry out their community duties, help the army safeguard the area, and tend to their fields – which are the main sources of their livelihood.

“There are anywhere between 80 to 200 soldiers here at any given moment, to watch over the kibbutz, and dozens of hens that are wandering in the fields after fleeing from the nearby Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha. There are still lots of burned vehicles and shattered window panes all around. It feels completely surreal to be here,” he shares.

During the attack, Heffetz sought refuge in the safe room of his house, along with his sister and his partner, for 12 hours. His ex-wife and their two children, aged 15 and 12, all survived the attack, having hidden in a safe room in a house nearby. His daughter has already gone back to the boarding school where she studies, while his son remains with the majority of the community of Nirim, who were evacuated to a hotel in Eilat in the wake of the assault.

“We could never have imagined a scenario like the one that unfolded on October 7,” Heffetz admits. “However, we’re used to living under heavy rocket fire. I don’t know whether the word ‘abandonment’ is right, but, yes, that’s what the state did to us. It was clear to me over the years that we were not really being guarded. Let’s put it this way: I never saw soldiers stationed between my house and the Gaza Strip. This is the result of a government policy that prefers not to resolve the [Jewish-Palestinian] conflict, out of a desire to separate between the West Bank and Gaza.

“For me, coming back is less about the aspect of financial losses; I’m not afraid that I will starve. I know that the government will compensate us to some extent. I want to come back because it’s depressing not to be here. At the end of the day I’m a farmer, my harvest is years’ worth of work, and the harvest is my home. Home is not four walls; home is all the fields around me.”

The real concern, Heffetz adds, is that “no one can really tell us what will happen in the future. How long will this take? A month? Two months? What will happen in Gaza? I know some of my neighbors might not return, but I want to go back home.”

Sights you never forget

For the 24-year-old Noa Globerman, a fourth-year film student at Sapir College, life in the South was not the natural, go-to choice. She grew up in the central city of Ra’anana, but eventually “fell in love with the South, its views and its people,” after choosing to pursue her artistic studies at the southern institution. At first she lived in Sderot, before moving to Kibbutz Nir Am for her last year of school. That’s where she was on the morning of October 7.

After many hours of uncertainty, hiding in her small kibbutz apartment with a broken door lock, Globerman was able to seek refuge with a family in the kibbutz who responded to her messages in the WhatsApp group community chat. The mother took Globerman in, and eventually drove her children and Globerman out of the kibbutz and into central Israel in the dead of night, while the fighting was still going on in most of the communities around them.

“I’m so grateful for the kindness of this stranger,” Globerman says. “She drove with so much confidence, navigating through sights I will never forget in my life. She told her children to close their eyes, to spare them the horrors, but I didn’t and I’ll always remember what I saw.”

Globerman had planned to finish college and relocate to the US, where she wanted to try her luck breaking into New York’s film industry, but everything changed on that fateful fall day. Globerman says that she can’t graduate until she officially hands in her final project, a short film she created, but none of her teachers are available to see it. Some of them, residents of the nearby kibbutzim, died in the attack. Others are away, grieving the loss of family members and friends.

“Our entire college, as a community, was severely affected by these events. We did receive a financial support stipend from the school, which was very kind of them,” she says.

“Living in a place like Sderot or on a kibbutz close to the border means that you get used to running for shelter in 15 seconds. It means that life under fire becomes part of your routine. But it also means you get to live in some of the most beautiful places in this country, with amazing scenery right outside your doorstep,” Globerman reflects on her adopted homes.

“I was planning to leave, but now, with everything that’s happened, my life is on hold. I don’t think I will personally go back to live in the South, but if communities volunteer together to help rebuild some of the damaged kibbutzim, like Kfar Aza, where I have friends, I will definitely go there to help,” she vows.

The horrors still reflecting in people’s eyes

Rotem Hazan, a 40-year-old criminal lawyer by profession and a mother of two young boys, shares Heffetz’s desire to return to the South. Hazan hails from the village of Yated, a small community belonging to the Eshkol Regional Council.

On the morning of October 7, approximately 15 armed terrorists infiltrated Hazan’s moshav, entering on motorcycles and pickup trucks. For 32 hours, Hazan, her husband, their two toddler children, and the hundreds of the other residents of Yated hid in their safe rooms without electricity, entirely cut off from the world while the community’s emergency standby squad fought off the Hamas assassins.

Only on Sunday were they able to leave their residence and evacuate. Some of the families were accompanied by the military, while others simply left independently and headed for the road, hoping to survive and not run into terrorists who were lurking in ambushes along various roads in the area.

Hazan, who was born in the moshav and spent the majority of her life there, says that belonging to such a tightly knit community is what gives her the mental wherewithal to carry on.

“I keep saying that the reason I’m alive is sheer luck. I have lots of luck,” she tells the Post in a telephone conversation from an apartment in Herzliya, where she is currently staying with her family indefinitely. “Now, post-October 7, I’m entertaining thoughts I never did before. I want to get physically stronger, so I can carry my children and run if necessary. And I want to get a gun license.”

Previously, she and her children, aged four and two, stayed at a hotel in Eilat along with other evacuees. “I felt a huge dissonance there. All of our needs were met, and there were many activities for the children and performances, but you feel like a refugee. When I walked on the boardwalk in Eilat, I saw so many people like us. At first glance, they seem fine, but you can recognize them and tell that they’re displaced, because of the horror still reflecting in their eyes.”

Hazan says that she braces to stay away from home for at least a year, but that her father, who is a farmer, has already returned. “He can’t afford not to go back; it’s his entire life’s work there. And besides, what is he to do, start over and embark on a new career? He’s already 70 years old. I honestly think that if he shuts down his business there, he might die. You have to understand, farmers in our area are people who live there out of a strong ideology. It’s in our blood and soul.”

She explains that while she isn’t afraid to return, she opts not to do so, out of concern for the well-being of her children. “I can’t live with two toddlers inside a safe room all day long. Also, their daycares have not reopened yet, so it’s not really feasible to go back. I also know that some of my neighbors won’t return. Nonetheless, my husband and I are yearning to go back.”

Asked whether she believes the South will ever be able to recuperate, Hazan is quick to assert that she has “no doubt that it will. However, if I lived on a kibbutz like Kfar Aza or Be’eri, which suffered the main brunt of the attack, I wouldn’t be able to go back. How can you return to a place that was once home and walk down the path where you saw dead bodies lying on the ground? It’s a daily reminder of trauma, and I don’t know how people can resume their lives there after having gone through that.”

The stories of Heffetz, Hazan and Globerman are only three of thousands. While they all express hope to go back to the places where they have led their peaceful lives, it remains to be seen what will be the fate of the many displaced and evacuated people like them, and of the communities they still proudly call home.•