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Three years after the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023, the dining hall of Kibbutz Nir Oz stands empty, its ceiling tiles now home to roosting birds. The room that once served as the social heart of a tight-knit community of roughly 400 Israelis has become a monument to sudden, catastrophic loss, the BBC reports.
Visitors entering through the glass doors, which are still marked by bullet holes, are met with a stark visual record of the massacre. Postboxes for each household carry stickers applied after the attacks: red for residents who were killed, black for those taken hostage. Dalit Ram Aharon, who survived the assault along with her husband Achi and their three children, said the labels mean that roughly one in four members of the community was either murdered or kidnapped, including children and babies.
The kibbutz, located about a mile (1.6km) from the Gaza border, was among the hardest-hit communities during the deadliest day in Israel's history. As the country marks the third anniversary, survivors are confronting both the trauma of what happened and the difficult question of what should come next for the place they once called home.
Forty-one Nir Oz residents and foreign workers were killed in the assault, along with six people who had fled to the kibbutz from a nearby party. A further 76 people from the community were abducted to Gaza, a group that included nine bodies. Fourteen hostages were taken alive and later killed in captivity. The last living hostages from Nir Oz were returned to Israel on 13 October 2025, and the remains of the final deceased hostage, Amiram Cooper, were brought back two weeks later.
The human cost is visible in every corner. At the nearby burnt-out home of the Siman Tov family, a wind chime still hangs by the door. A photograph shows Tamar and Yonatan with their three children: five-year-old twin girls Shahar and Arbel, and two-year-old Omer. The parents were shot through the door of their bomb shelter, a room designed to withstand rockets launched from Gaza but not gunfire. Dalit recalled the last messages Tamar sent to a neighbours' group that morning: first asking whether everyone was fine, then writing that they were being shot, and finally, in faltering words, that they were badly injured. Survivors believe the house was set alight and the children died of suffocation.
An estimated 500 Palestinians took part in the assault on Nir Oz, led by Hamas's elite Nukhba force but also including civilian looters, some of them children. The attackers targeted an unsuspecting community known for its farming and its history of peace activism. The Israeli Defense Forces' investigation into the events found that the army, thrown into disarray by the simultaneous assault on more than 20 communities and multiple military posts, failed completely to come to the rescue. The first soldiers reached the kibbutz roughly 40 minutes after the last attackers had left. Nearly every household experienced killing, violence including sexual assaults and rape, looting and kidnapping.
Today, dozens of fire-damaged homes, once simple one-storey buildings, have been demolished, leaving behind rows of reinforced concrete safe rooms that failed to protect their occupants. The Aharons want some of the damaged houses preserved as evidence of what took place. Achi said people should be able to see the destruction and what he described as the pure hatred that was unleashed there. The couple pointed out the spot where teacher Maya Goren was killed inside the kindergarten, and the makeshift memorials for three of the seven members of the kibbutz security team who died battling the gunmen.
Dalit paused during a walk through the greenery to show a tree planted long ago by her parents, who helped found the kibbutz. They survived the attacks physically unharmed but died just months later. Next door stands the small home of Shiri Bibas, the mother of ginger-haired Ariel, four, and nine-month-old Kfir. The three became symbols of the Gaza hostage crisis after being snatched from their home. Dalit described Shiri as a very close friend, almost like a sister, and recalled that the two were pregnant at the same time and joked that their children would one day marry. Shiri's husband, Yarden, was released alive by Hamas under a Gaza ceasefire deal in February 2025.
The rebuilding debate reflects a wider struggle across southern Israel, where communities devastated on 7 October must weigh the desire to return against the security failures that left them exposed. Some residents argue that reconstructing the kibbutz is an act of defiance and a way to honour those who died. Others question whether it is safe or even possible to restore life in a place so close to the border, especially as uncertainty over Gaza's future persists and many of the hostages' families continue to demand answers.
For Dalit and Achi, the decision is deeply personal. They say they want to move back to Nir Oz in the memory of the friends they lost. Returning, in their view, is not simply about rebuilding houses but about preserving a community that was almost erased. Yet every rebuilt home and every cleared plot of land will sit alongside reminders of the violence, and the question of how to memorialise the dead while making room for the living remains unresolved.
The third anniversary has brought renewed attention to the hostages and to the communities that bore the brunt of the attack. For the survivors of Nir Oz, the coming years will be defined by practical choices about construction, security and memorialisation, as well as by the harder, quieter work of carrying a shattered community forward. As birds settle again in the abandoned dining room, the kibbutz's future remains as uncertain as the memories that fill its empty streets.
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