On a recent drive around Kibbutz Be’eri in southern Israel, Executive Director Gal Cohen pointed out neighborhoods and community centers under construction from his golf cart.

“This is … one of the new neighborhoods,” Cohen said. “We opened all the services [here]. You can get a massage here. And the shops and the pub and the pool [are] open.”

But in the area — a few miles east of the Gaza border — the people who might have been swimming laps in the pool or sipping a cold draft beer at the end of a day’s work were nowhere in sight. And it’s not hard to understand why.

Three years ago, on Oct. 7, 2023, thousands of Hamas militants crossed into Israel from the Gaza Strip, beginning an hours-long attack that ultimately left some 1,200 people dead, while 251 people were taken hostage.

It would end up being the deadliest day in Israel’s history.

“They went 10 people to each house and asked them to come out,” Cohen said of the Hamas fighters. “You won’t come out, they burn the house; you come out, they kidnap you or just shoot you, or first tie your hands and then shoot you in the head. Most of the people from Be’eri weren’t kidnapped. They were just murdered, and many of them burned in the house,” he said.

More than 10% of Be’eri’s 1,100 residents were killed on Oct. 7, and dozens were taken hostage. A third of the houses here were damaged or destroyed.

Cohen, his three children, wife and dog spent more than 10 hours in their home’s safe room that day — and survived. They moved away, along with the other residents, to different locations, but only briefly, returning to Be’eri two months later.

They are a minority. Most residents have remained living in a neighborhood in Kibbutz Hatzerim, about 45 minutes away.

Cohen said that around a hundred of more than a thousand former residents have come back.

This neighborhood in Kibbutz Be’eri is now a combination of the old and the new — under construction and reconstruction, with some obvious remnants from that day of charred buildings and ruins.

Cathy Lawi, a trauma specialist and the founder and CEO of Emotion Aid, works extensively with people who have been affected by Oct. 7 and its aftermath.

“You have the experience of the trauma. You have an experience of what we call moral injury because human values were transgressed in a way that is going beyond anything that we can accept as human beings,” Lawi said. “And there is also a whole collective aspect. Systemically speaking, it touches the land, it touches the collective of the kibbutz and one aspect that is particularly difficult and takes a long time is collective grief.”

Most Kibbutz Be’eri members, who are now living in Kibbutz Hatzerim, voted to return home next July. But voting is one thing, physically making the move is another. 

“There’ll be people [who] won’t be able to come back after what happened, and it’s obvious. You have to deal with the fear that people have, not necessarily solve all the security problems. But you have to let the people feel secure,” Cohen explained.

Burnt-out homes are visible throughout Be’eri’s construction sites. There is also an expansive cemetery where Oct. 7 victims are still being brought home to be laid to rest after years of temporary burials.

Cohen discussed measures being implemented to encourage more people to return. There will be more and higher-grade weapons, $3 million dollars invested in safe room door locks, ventilation systems to guard against asphyxiation if someone sets the house on fire, multiple layers of barbed wire fence, scattered concrete barricades for taking up positions during firefights and a new escape road for fleeing residents and incoming military backup.

And one especially chilling measure, reminiscent of the Nazi era: secret hiding crawl spaces created inside newly built homes.

“The fear of death … when you have it for hours, it marks your …” Cohen stammered, pointing to his heart. But all the barbed wire, ventilation systems and secret crawl spaces in the world aren’t full guarantees.

But therapist Cathy Lawi said, “that’s what people need.”

“The key word is ‘safety.’ Now, the way we’re going to experience safety can be very different,” Lawi said. “The soldier going to combat needs a [physical] charm because it’s like a prayer or a way to connect to something spiritual and something bigger than him that is going to protect him. For them, they didn’t feel protected the way the houses were built and the way the kibbutz was organized, and they’re going to have to feel confident that things have changed; that the people who are actually protecting the kibbutz are better organized, better armed, better trained.”

Lawi added that the trauma Kibbutz Be’eri residents experienced can be transgenerational — people can pass it along to their descendants. But rebuilding and reconnecting can reverse it … which is what Cohen dedicates his life to. He holds onto optimism as the only way forward and believes a deal with Gaza will eventually happen — just not in his lifetime.