When Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, nowhere was hit harder than the community of Nir Oz, less than a mile from Gaza.
There, 47 men, women and children were murdered and 76 more were abducted to Gaza – around a quarter of the tight knit community gone within hours.
Almost every single home came under attack with half of the kibbutz burned to the ground.
But three years on, despite both the unimaginable loss and its proximity to Gaza, Nir Oz is rebuilding.
New homes are being built and others are being renovated, including some where young families were killed in their safe rooms.
Unsurprisingly, not everyone who survived has chosen to return.
Bringing life back to a place where death was everywhere is a delicate and sensitive process.
Emi Palmor, a former civil servant who has spent three years supporting the survivors of Nir Oz is leading the rebuilding.
“For these people this place is the Chernobyl of traumas” she says, adding that some survivors have only agreed to come back if their houses are completely demolished.
But other families want the burnt-out ruins of their homes to stand as both evidence and monuments so that the horror of what happened here can never be forgotten.
“Some of the people who are insisting on keeping their houses say nobody has taken responsibility for what happened” explains Emi.
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