Nir Oz, Israel – Eliyahu Margalit, better known by his nickname “Churchill,” was the mythical cattle rancher of Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of the communities along the Gaza border that was hardest hit during the heinous attack by the Hamas terrorists on October 1, 2018. 7. Margalit, 77, was kidnapped, along with his horses, in Gaza. On December 1, the Israeli military announced that Churchill had been killed by the terrorist group while in captivity.
Just a day earlier, Churchill’s daughter Nili, 41, returned home from Gaza as part of the seventh group of hostages freed in the temporary truce deal brokered with Hamas.
More than a quarter of Nir Oz’s 427 residents were killed or kidnapped on Black Shabbat, as it is known locally.
Of them, 31 remain captive in Gaza, including Kfir Bibas, the red-haired baby who, at 11 months old, has become a symbol of the hostage crisis as the youngest kidnapped.
The IDF announced last week that seven hostages had died while in captivity, four of whom, including Margalit, were from Nir Oz.
A volunteer picking avocados in Nir Oz, which, like many nearby agricultural kibbutzim, has relied on outside help to step in and reap its bounty. Courtesy of Deborah Danan After the Hamas attack on Nir Oz, about a quarter of its residents had been killed or kidnapped in Gaza. REUTERS
Life continues in Margalit’s stable and the day her death was announced a new calf was born.
The newly delivered bovine is not the only sign of new life emerging from the devastation.
Last week, new potato shoots were planted and avocados were harvested, and volunteers from all over Israel came to the fields to lend a hand.
The once bucolic kibbutz, which is located just a mile from the Gaza border, has 6 acres of farmland and is known for its exports of potatoes, pomegranates, wheat and peanuts.
A temporary school at the Eilat hotel now houses displaced people from Nir Oz. Courtesy of Deborah Danan The luxury hotel in Eilat where Nir Oz residents are now building a new temporary home as they consider how to return to the Kibbutz. Courtesy of Deborah Danan
An oasis of green in the arid climates of the western Negev Desert, the kibbutz is an ecological wonder and home to 900 species of flora.
Since the start of the Second Intifada in 2001, Nir Oz, which was established in 1955, has been plagued by rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza.
These attacks intensified significantly in both number and frequency after Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and Hamas subsequently seized the Strip in a bloody coup.
Still, kibbutz residents say it was a price they were willing to pay for what they believed was a piece of heaven on earth.
Yagil Yaakov was held captive in Gaza for weeks (left), but has since returned to his family (photo before captivity). Courtesy
“It was 99% paradise and 1% hell,” Benny Avital, a member of Nir Oz’s rapid response team, told The Post outside a row of burned houses on the kibbutz. “They [fire rockets] We escape with the children, sometimes for a few days or a couple of months, and then we come back and stay quiet for a while.
“But after that Saturday, it’s 1% heaven and 99% hell.”
Each of the nearly 20 communities targeted by the October 7 massacre experienced the attack differently, leading to varied responses and different perspectives on rehabilitation and the possibility of return.
In the case of Nir Oz, it took hours for IDF forces to arrive, leaving the terrorists to carry out an expanded systemic strategy of on-the-spot killings, home raids, and attempts to break into safe rooms.
Kibbutz Nir Oz is located just minutes from Israel’s border with Gaza. Wikipedia/Danny-w
When, in some cases, those attempts failed, terrorists set fire to the homes of Nir Oz, leaving residents with a terrible choice: face suffocation or face the attackers.
According to Avital, who threw a wet towel on his head and ran toward the houses rescuing several dozen survivors, of the 700 Palestinians who entered the Kibbutz that day, only 150 were real armed militants.
The rest were civilian men, women and children.
It was later learned that some of those civilians had taken members of the kibbutz hostage.
Longtime Nir Oz resident Ron Bahat has already opted to return to the Kibbutz, one of the few members now living within the community. Courtesy of Deborah Danan
The relentless violence of October 7 is why many residents, including Avital, cannot answer whether they will eventually return to the kibbutz.
“We don’t want to think about that now. There are still many people kidnapped and the situation in Gaza is unknown,” says Avital. “We can’t continue living here when they are there.”
Renana Gome Yaakov, whose sons Yagil, 12, and Or Yaakov, 16, were returned to Israel on November 27 after enduring horrific abuse in Gaza for 54 days, including being branded by terrorists using motorcycle exhaust pipes, He said that for now, returning was not in the cards.
“Can you imagine bringing the children back to the house where they were kidnapped?” Gomeh Yaakov told The Post.
However, there is already a tentative plan for the eventual return to Nir Oz.
A grim sight: the mail room at Kibbutz Nir Oz, with labels atop residents’ boxes indicating, in Hebrew, whether they were “killed” or “kidnapped.” Courtesy of Deborah Danan
For the next month, the community will continue to stay in a hotel in the Red Sea resort of Eilat, where they were evacuated after the massacre.
The resort city, which hugs Israel’s border with Egypt and Jordan, has doubled its population since the war began and is home to more than 60,000 of Israel’s 300,000 evacuees.
A converted field school in Eilat has been transformed into a school for 600 children from Nir Oz and other battered communities in the Gaza area.
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The hotel itself, which is located between a popular coral reef diving spot and the red mountains of the Negev, has undergone several modifications to adapt to its new role.
A dozen tents have gone up next to the pools, for everything from makeshift preschools to massage clinics and art therapy spaces.
At first, they brought in clowns and singers in an attempt to lift spirits, but according to Irit Lahav, the daughter of Nir Oz’s founders who took on the unofficial role of kibbutz spokesperson, it didn’t feel good.
Nir Oz member Nili Margalit was kidnapped in Gaza, where she was held for weeks. Her father, the Kibbutz’s beloved cowherd, was murdered by Hamas. Via REUTERS
“There’s too much sadness,” he said.
Late at night, the hotel lobby transforms into a meeting place where survivors, plagued by insomnia, exchange stories of that fateful day.
Lahav’s own life, and that of his 22-year-old daughter Lotus, was saved after he jammed an oar to prevent the safe’s door handle from opening.
“Here we sit and cry,” he said, gesturing toward the opulent lobby, which overlooks several swimming pools and meticulously manicured gardens.
After their stay in Eilat, the community, which Lahav said hopes to remain together, will move to newly built apartment blocks in the southern Israeli town of Kiryat Gat, where they are expected to stay for eight months.
Relocating to high-rise apartments in an urban environment is not ideal, Lahav said, and would represent a significant change for kibbutz residents who are accustomed to large, open spaces, their own private homes and a communal way of life.
Under the plan, the community will receive a daycare center on an adjacent street. School-age children will attend school in Gat, a nearby kibbutz.
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The move is being carried out in conjunction with the Tekuma Authority – the government body tasked with rehabilitating the Gaza envelope region – and is partially funded by American Jewish groups.
Jewish communities in America have also been paired with evacuated Israeli communities, and Chicago adopted Nir Oz. Similar efforts are underway for other Gaza-area communities severely affected by Hamas.
Residents of Be’eri, for example, have been relocated to resorts along the Dead Sea, while those of Kfar Aza are in a hotel along Israel’s central Mediterranean coast.
The Nir Oz community will remain housed for most of a year in Kiryat Gat.
During that time, a temporary settlement made up of mobile homes known as caravillas (a portmanteau of the words caravan and villa) will be built for the community in the Negev region, probably Irit near Lahav, a kibbutz about 60 miles east of Nir Oz.
According to the current plan, the community will remain in the caravillas for about two years.
Afterwards, Lahav noted, and depending on a host of factors, the question of returning to his beloved kibbutz may have a more definitive answer.
“Will I come back and take the risk again? Right now I can’t even think about next week. I love this place. I love the fields, I love the people. But it’s too scary.” Lahav, who accompanied The Post on a tour of the kibbutz’s smoldering ruins, he said.
Ron Bahat, 57, who grew up with Lahav in the kibbutz’s collective children’s home, has a different attitude and has already returned to Nir Oz.
.About 60% of Israel’s agricultural product supply comes from the Gaza corridor area, such as Kfar Aza, Be’eri and Nachal oz. Mapcreator.io/OSM.org
“I came back because it is my home,” he said. But Bahat remains an anomaly.
For now, the most urgent priority is to secure the kibbutz and ensure that its production does not completely collapse.
About 60% of Israel’s product supply comes from the Gaza corridor area, such as Kfar Aza, Be’eri and Nachal oz.
An IDF unit has been tasked with overseeing a civilian and military mission to ensure that the job for which Maj.
Scenes of devastation in Nir Oz following the Hamas attack on October 7. Courtesy of Deborah Danan Soldiers were seen inspecting destroyed homes at Kibbutz Nir Oz on Nov. 21, 2023. AP
Nir Boms called “the day after,” when the fighting with Hamas stops.
The unit has crossed off 200 daily tasks to that end, from cleaning surviving homes of blood to treating traumatized dogs and harvesting crops.
“A boy asked us to feed his fish, so we had soldiers do it,” Boms said.
“Almost from day one we were given the task of rebuilding. This is what we do. They tear down, we build. “They won’t break our spirit.”
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