An Israeli flag is flapping in the gentle breeze amid the almost brazenly loud chirping of the birds as Shar Shnurman serves mandarin juice on his veranda made from fruits he harvested himself. It would be an idyllic setting were it not for the dull explosions in the distance, the thunder from the artillery and the roars from the warplanes overhead. With the Gaza Strip just two kilometers from his veranda, Shnurman lives in a warzone.

Shnurman doesn’t flinch when he hears the explosions. "That’s the soundtrack of our lives," he says, leaning back in his camping chair. His mobile phone is lying in front of him, ringing constantly, often with people he doesn’t even know calling to congratulate him and to donate money. Most, though, are especially interested to know what it’s like to live in Kfar Aza again – a place where 63 people were brutally murdered by Hamas and other terrorist groups and a further 19 abducted. All but five of those abductees have since been freed, with another two having been accidentally shot to death by the Israeli army.

So, what is his answer to those wanting to know what it is like here? "Great."

Shnurman, 62, has had the date tattooed on his arm: 10/07/23. Its resemblance to a concentration camp number is likely no accident.

He spent 28 hours with his wife Ayelet Khon in their safe room on that fateful day before finally being rescued. They emerged unscathed – at least outwardly.

"I told my wife at the time, we’ll be back within a couple of days," Shnurman says. Those couple of days, though, ultimately turned into almost two months, but in the end, they could stand it no longer in Tel Aviv. In early December, they packed their things and returned home. "That first night, we slept like babies."

Before October 7, 2023, Kfar Aza was home to around 950 people. Now, the two of them have the place to themselves. Their mission is to change that.

Most of the survivors were brought to a kibbutz north of Tel Aviv, while others are living in hotels or private residences. They are refugees in their own country, just like around 60,000 people who lived in the immediate surroundings of the Gaza Strip. And roughly the same amount from northern Israel, who have left their homes due to rocket attacks from Lebanon.

Soon, a half a year will have passed since the massacre took place, during which some 1,140 people were slaughtered and around 250 more abducted and taken to the Gaza Strip. It was a massacre that triggered an ongoing war in which more than 30,000 Palestinians have now lost their lives. How are the survivors dealing with their memories of October 7? What do their lives look like now and do they want to return to their former homes? Is it even possible to go back to a place where so many people were murdered?

The war in Gaza isn’t just being fought to free the hostages and destroy Hamas. It is also about ensuring that tens of thousands of people can once again live near the Gaza Strip. And that the state can provide a long-term sanctuary for Jews.

A Disintegrating Family

For the residents of Kfar Aza, an additional concern is that of preserving their community. Life in the kibbutzim has changed over the years, of course, and people now have private property and salaries are no longer shared. But they still feel like one large family. And that is currently disintegrating.

"If only the older people return, but not the families with children, then Hamas will have won," says Shnurman. "Then, we won’t have a future." He says he misses the noise of the children that used to bother him so often.

At this moment, a group of visitors stops in front of his veranda. Shnurman lifts himself out of his chair to shake hands, offering his visitors juice and cake, baked by his wife.

"Why did you want to return?" one of the visitors wants to know.

"I don’t want to live anywhere else," says Shnurman. The visitors begin applauding.

His veranda has become something of an informal meeting point for the kibbutz. Everyone who comes to Kfar Aza stops by: residents visiting their homes; soldiers dusty and sweaty from operations in the Gaza Strip; and workers from the plastic factory that the kibbutz founded, and which exports its products around the world. Mostly, though, the visitors are normal Israelis who want to see first-hand what happened on October 7.

Sometimes, there are so many of them that a traffic jam develops at the entrance to Kfar Aza.

Every Thursday, Shnurman hosts a barbecue. When he started his weekly feasts back in December, 10 people would show up. Now, up to 80 come by. Preparing for the weekly event has become his most important occupation. During one of the barbecues, a soldier asked if he had a cola, and since then, Shnurman always keeps a few bottles on hand in his refrigerator.

As he talks, his wife is cleaning – as if terror and trauma can be washed away with soap. It’s about all she’s been doing for the last several weeks. The practice for massage and acupuncture she used to operate in the kibbutz will likely remain closed for some time yet due to a lack of patients.

Cleaning Away the Pain

At the moment, Ayelet Khon, 55, is scrubbing the floor of a neighbor’s terrace, wearing sweatpants and an old T-shirt. Next to her is a mountain of dirty rags. She says she doesn’t really understand what the big deal is. "All I’ve done is return to my house. It’s nothing special!"

But she’s happy to talk. She says that her parents moved to Kfar Aza after completing their military service and that she was born here. As a child, she says, they would go to Gaza and to the beaches of the Sinai Peninsula. The coastal strip was conquered and occupied by the Israelis in 1967, but initially, relations were decent despite the political conflict. Residents of Kfar Aza would often head to Gaza for cheap vegetables and a shawarma.

Kfar Aza has been Gaza’s little neighbor. Indeed, the name of the kibbutz actually means Gaza Village.

At the beginning of the first intifada, the Palestinian uprising in the late 1980s, contact between the settlement and the Gaza Strip began to wane. A fence was built, augmented later by a subterranean wall to block tunnels – and the feeling of closeness slowly dissipated. Even before Hamas took over control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, the number of rockets being fired into Israel from Gaza had begun to rise. The kindergarten in the kibbutz received a cement roof and even the electrical boxes have been clad in concrete since then.

When the rocket alarm goes off, they have 10 seconds to get to safety.

Once or twice a year, most of the residents would pack their things and move into hotels or go to friends’ homes to wait out the most recent barrage of rockets. They had grown used to it.

Khon and Shnurman, though, stayed – even after two rockets detonated right in front of their home in 2014. And they also continued voting for left-wing political parties.

"We have always tried to avoid seeing the people over there as enemies. There were terrorists, yes, but the others were like us and wanted peace." Ayelet Khon still wants to hold on to that belief, but it is hard.

The neighbor whose terrace she is cleaning is no longer alive. The terrorists tossed a grenade into her safe room.

But the Hamas militants never came into Shnurman's and Khon’s house. Apparently, they thought that nobody was home – which is right next door to the house belonging to their dead neighbor. The fact that they are still alive is due to pure luck.

"We can’t forgive what Hamas did to us. But what they did to their own people is even worse," says Shnurman. He takes a critical view of the current war. "We have a right to defend ourselves. But is it helpful when children are dying over there?"

Two cats are sprawled on the couch behind him, left behind by their owners. He feeds them even though he doesn’t particularly like cats. His own dog is currently at his brother’s due to the artillery noise. Shnurman has also tried to feed the stray dogs that came over from Gaza and are now roaming through the kibbutz, but they are afraid of people.

Locked and Sealed

When walking through Kfar Aza, many places look as though the residents are just gone for a short time. Children’s bicycles are parked here and there and swings rock back and forth in the wind. Clothes are still hanging on some of the dry racks. But everything is covered by a layer of dust. Lemons and pomelos are rotting on the trees.

In the days immediately following the attack, the doors of all the houses were open, but residents were not amused when photos of their bedrooms suddenly began circulating on the internet. Nor did they like it when politicians, who had done nothing to protect them from the terror, began showing up in the kibbutz with foreign guests like Elon Musk, Boris Johnson, Ivanka Trump and Ursula von der Leyen. Now, many of the doors are locked or sealed off.

Red-and-white warning tape also flatters in front the area of the village called HaDor HaTzair, meaning "young generation." The apartments in the quarter were primarily occupied by students or those performing their military service – and many of those who were home on October 7 are either dead or were abducted. It is the place in the kibbutz where the horrors of the attack are most present. Some of the houses are burned out, their contents lying strewn about: items of clothing, mattrasses, torn open pillows and broken plates.

The plain housing blocks have become something of a pilgrimage site, with visitors taking selfies in front of the ruins, praying and lighting candles. Takeout coffee cups litter the ground.

Signs have been set up reading: Don’t touch anything! Don’t take anything!

A New Yad Vashem?

Nothing should change. Nothing cleaned up. These buildings have become a national memorial site – for some, even a new Yad Vashem. A place of remembrance to the greatest crime committed against Jews since the Holocaust.

Even as this crime still hasn’t come to an end for many victims, others are already thinking about how to tell future generations about it.

Camera operators have spent weeks here and in other kibbutzim filming in every room and flying drones overhead for shots from above. Archeologists are collecting objects that reflect the terror that took place here. The national library is collecting videos, photos, interviews and WhatsApp messages. One day, October 7 will be a virtual experience on an endless loop.

But what should happen to the actual, real-life places remains unclear. Should they become memorial sites? Or places filled with new life?

"I would prefer to leave everything as it is," says Yuri Levin. "But I know that won’t be possible. We have to live here." Maybe, he says half-jokingly, the houses can be dismantled and rebuilt elsewhere. What about the square in front of the Knesset, he wonders? They could sit there, in front of Israeli parliament, as a memorial to the government’s failure.

He ignores the tape and walks into a charred apartment. The roof is gone, the awning has melted away and the washing machine is just a metal frame. The fact that Yuri Levin is still alive is a miracle, because this was his apartment.

He wanders through the ash and debris, a slender 29-year-old who still can’t fully fathom what happened here.

When the house began burning on October 7, Levin says, he thought he was going to die. The smoke almost suffocated him, and the terrorists were standing outside in front of the window. He ran out, but they didn’t shoot him, apparently because they wanted to take him hostage. So, he ran for his life and hid under a bush for several hours, bullets zipping above his head.

A Refugee in His Own Country

His girlfriend wasn’t there on the day of the attack, and today is the first time she has returned to Kfar Aza since October 7. She never wants to live here again, she says with emphasis. "Gaza and Hamas are still so close." Yuri Levin, though, has decided he wants to return. Or, rather, he feels he has to return. He says he doesn’t want to be a refugee in his own country. "There is no other country where I could live." But there is one condition: "Hamas must be destroyed."

Until the day of the attack, Levin says, he had believed that peace was possible. He used to work for a regional administration project that invited Palestinians from Gaza to workshops. His boss dreamed of establishing an industrial area right at the border crossing into Gaza, envisioning hundreds of Palestinians working there and earning enough money to build better lives in Gaza. On October 7, his boss was killed – as was his dream.

"We used to say that Hamas was just a few thousand people, and there were 2 million people who are like us," says an embittered Yuri Levin. "But on October 7, we saw that they were all happy about the massacre. Everything we believed turned out to be not true."

Residents of Kfar Aza say they used to collect music instruments for schools in Gaza, even bringing a piano across the border. They can’t understand why, despite everything, the people on the other side of the fence continued to see them as enemies. But in the absence of a real state, the good deeds were apparently only seen as charitable handouts – all part of a tragic, mutual misunderstanding.

In December, Yuri Levin guided the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court through Kfar Aza – and he is now leading the way along the same route he took with the representative from The Hague. The neighbor over there: killed. Those two across the way: also killed. The friend one apartment further along: decapitated. The twins down there: kidnapped. And the two women neighbors: also kidnapped.

Right behind Levin’s housing block is one of the gates through which the terrorists accessed the kibbutz. From there, you look across a couple of fields to where the Gaza Strip begins – close and distant at the same time. There used to be buildings right across the fence, but now they are just ruins. Every now and then a column of smoke can be seen rising above them.

Guy Asor was part of the operations that blew up some of those structures. It’s just a few days after the chief prosecutor’s visit and he is also visiting Kfar Aza. He's wearing his uniform, complete with an assault rifle, and is showing his comrades the destruction wrought by the terrorists. They spend the night in his mother’s house before heading back to the war the next morning. Asor says that it’s just a 20-minute walk from here to Gaza – but of course they’re not just going to wander in on foot.

Across in Gaza City, in a neighborhood called Shuja’iyya, there are tunnels everywhere, he says, adding that they found weapons, rockets or combat gear in almost every house they searched. After which they would blow them up.

Guy Asor studies economics and law at university. He is 27 years old and lives in Tel Aviv, but he grew up in Kfar Aza. His mother and sister both survived the October 7 massacre here, but he lost many friends. He is now defending his kibbutz, so to speak, in part because he hopes that he will have a future here one day.

As a family member of survivors, he didn’t have to go to war. But it seemed easier to him to join the fight than to listen to their stories. So, he volunteered just as the ground offensive was starting at the end of October.

In January, after 60 days in battle, he is back in Tel Aviv, and proposes "Hostage Square" as our meeting point, the site of regular demonstrations in solidarity with those who were abducted and are still being held in Gaza. The Tel Aviv Museum of Art is on one side while the Defense Ministry is on the other. In the middle, a recent addition, there is a tunnel made of wood and plaster. Inside, it is narrow, sandy and dark – and there are even sound effects replicating artillery fire. Dozens of people are standing in line to see what it’s like inside and to take a selfie.

"Pretty well done," says Asor. He has been in a number of tunnels himself – real ones – though they usually only went in a couple of meters because of the danger.

"It’s not about revenge for me," he says. Rather, his priority is security for his friends and family, and the return of the hostages. That's why he went to war. But after 60 days, it seems as though disillusionment has set in. "We need a cease-fire to get the hostages back," he says. In his unit, though, he says, he is pretty much the only one who takes that view.

He is weighed down by the destruction he has seen and the images of families fleeing the violence in Gaza. During our discussion, he is continually searching for possible solutions for Gaza, but doesn’t find any. More education is needed, he says, so that young Palestinians don’t turn to Hamas. And: Couldn’t Egypt take over control of the region?

He feels compassion, but he also wants to return to Kfar Aza one day once he has his own family – free of the threat posed by Hamas.

Shaili Aviani is also on "Hostage Square," sitting in front of a tent devoted to remembering the hostages from Kfar Aza. She comes here frequently. She is wearing gold-framed glasses and pink-painted fingernails. She has two tattoos: A pair of angels on her left calf depicting her two best friends and the Arab word "hayati" on her upper arm, meaning "my life." It was her father’s nickname for her. Her two friends were murdered on October 7, as was her father. He was head of the security team and died while defending the kibbutz.

Before October 7, Aviani, 20, had been a young military conscript who made TikTok videos in her spare time, had played roles in two movies and dreamed of becoming an actress. "I had so many plans," she says. "Now, I don’t have any."

She rolls a cigarette and has a smoke.

Just at this moment, the siren goes off indicating that Hamas has launched a rocket toward Tel Aviv. Aviani heads into the basement of the art museum, calmly writing messages on her mobile phone the whole time. A dull explosion can be heard a short time later as the Iron Dome intercepts the projectile.

One month later, she is still living in Tel Aviv. This time, our meeting takes place in a café where not just the walls are pink, but so are the cakes they serve. She says that she has been having frequent arguments with her flat mate about the washing or about dirty dishes in the kitchen. The flat mate, a friend of hers, is also a survivor. "How can you argue when you have experienced something like that?" she wonders.

Tours Through the Kibbutz

She is receiving therapy together with her friends, just like almost all October 7 survivors. Some, says Aviani, still can’t talk about what they went through. But she says talking is helpful for her and she has also begun one-on-one counselling sessions. But her real therapy is the tours she gives in the kibbutz, when she shows Israelis the traces of the massacre. "The tours are the only thing I can think about. It’s hard, but it helps me."

Her grandparents, she says, were among the founders of the kibbutz back in 1951, just three years after the establishment of the state of Israel. Her mother grew up there, as did she and her three siblings. "I am the third generation in the kibbutz, and my plan was to raise my children there too. But that is now over."

She then repeats the sentence that almost everyone says: "Kfar Aza was 95 percent heaven and 5 percent hell." She takes a deep breath. "Now, it’s the other way around."

The question of return has become one of the most important in Israel. The government has begun insisting on it. The costs of housing tens of thousands of people in hotels have become too great and the economy is suffering. And concern is growing that the more time goes by, the more people may decide never to return at all.

As of March 1, rent subsidies for alternative housing have been cut for all those whose homes are more than four kilometers from the Gaza Strip. Those who evacuated their homes may only remain in hotels until the beginning of July. To incentivize the return, every returnee receives a bonus payment: the equivalent of 3,700 euros for singles and up to 15,000 euros for families with four children. The later the return, the lower the bonus.

The survivors from Kfar Aza also won’t be able to remain for much longer in Shefayim, a hotel complex in a kibbutz north of Tel Aviv located just off the beach with expansive green areas and overhanging banyan trees. A replica of the bar in Kfar Aza has been built in the hotel, including signed soccer jerseys and wall paintings. Guitar lessons are available, along with a workshop and a library. In the dining room, a table has been set as a reminder of the last five hostages from the kibbutz.

Almost half of those evacuated from Kfar Aza have been put up here. Released hostages and parents whose children are still in Gaza, the injured and the traumatized. What looks like a paradise is in fact a place of pain.

In January, a majority of former Kfar Aza residents voted to relocate to Ruhama, which is situated about 15 kilometers from the Gaza Strip. The move is to have been completed by September at the latest. It is seen as an interim solution, allowing children to resume attending their schools and the adults to go back to work – a first step toward normality before they then return to Kfar Aza in summer 2025. Most of the evacuated communities surrounding Gaza have come up with similar plans.

Once they do return, all remnants from that horrific day in October are to have been removed. Almost half of all homes in Kfar Aza have been destroyed or damaged, and they are to be rebuilt or fixed up. Paths and community structures are to be redesigned and safe rooms are to be reinforced with bullet-proof doors and locks. But who wants to return to a place where such reinforced safe rooms might be needed in the future?

Indeed, it has already become apparent that the debate surrounding return has divided this community that was once so close. Some want to return to Kfar Aza, while others feel that even Ruhama is too near to the Gaza Strip. Many people would like to wait until the war in Gaza has come to an end before making a decision. Others are still too traumatized to make up their minds at all.

In many cases, the fissure runs right through the middle of families.

Birthday in a Safe Room

For 38 hours during the massacre, Amit and Tomer Ades sat with their three children in their home’s safe room. They even celebrated their middle son’s birthday while sheltering. Tomer Ades pulls out his mobile phone to show a photo of the chocolate cake that they quickly grabbed from the kitchen that day, a crooked candle in the middle of it. The paper garlands are still hanging in the living room. The body of the dead terrorist beneath it has been removed.

Tomer Ades, 39, is sitting on a plastic chair beneath one of the banyan trees in Shefayim wearing baggy jeans and a T-shirt – an outfit disguising the fact that he has 86 employees and ran a flourishing company with several hummus restaurants before October 7. For several months, only the outlet in Jerusalem remained open, but he recently reopened the restaurant in Be’er Sheva, with Sderot soon to follow. Both of those cities are located not far from the Gaza Strip. Ades has been paying his employees their salaries for the last several months even though many of them are unable to work. And he has also been collecting donations to make hummus for the soldiers at the front.