Last week was a significant milestone for Nir Oz as more residents moved into the HaHalutz neighbourhood, a cluster of ten new homes welcoming back veteran members of the kibbutz.
After two and a half years of displacement, the first members of Kibbutz Nir Oz are beginning to return.
Nine families have already received the keys to their new homes. They were welcomed with warmth, blessings, and sweet treats from friends and neighbours.
These are new houses, but the pioneering spirit that has always defined Nir Oz is tangible everywhere. The landscaping has yet to grow, piles of earth still surround the neighbourhood, and infrastructure, lighting, and pathways are still being completed. Yet residents are returning to rebuild their community, each at their own pace, carrying both excitement and hope. During the coming month, ten more veteran members are expected to return.
As we celebrate these first steps back onto the land of Nir Oz, we also hold close those whose homes have not yet been rebuilt and who have nowhere to return to. We think of members for whom returning is especially difficult, those who cannot yet bring themselves to walk the paths of the kibbutz again, and those who will never return.
But Nir Oz remains one community. Those who have returned and those still living in temporary accommodation in Karmey Gat are present in heart and spirit in every corner that is being rebuilt.
The following words were shared to welcome the returning residents:
“Welcome home.
After two and a half years of wandering, waiting, and longing, of building lives elsewhere while leaving a large part of your hearts behind, you are returning to Nir Oz.
Not to the same place. Not to the same reality. Not to the life that once was. But to home.
To the land that knows your footsteps, to the paths that carry your stories, to the Negev wind that continued to blow here even through the darkest days. To a community that is far more than a place to live, it is home in its deepest sense.
Today, we embrace you with profound respect: for the journey you have endured, for the strength you have shown, and for your ability to keep believing even when hope felt out of reach.
At the ceremony marking the laying of the foundation stone, Telma shared a conversation with her grandson, Ofri. He asked, ‘Grandma, don’t you want to return to Nir Oz?’
She replied, ‘I don’t think I can.’
When he asked why, she said, ‘I don’t have the strength to start everything over again.’
And he answered: ‘Grandma, you don’t understand. We’ll fix it. We’ll rebuild whatever is needed. You won’t have to do anything. We’ll come back and do the work. When everything is ready, you’ll come home. It will all be waiting for you.’
Today, that day has arrived.
With your return, the memories, the familiar landscapes, the trees, the scents, the sounds, and the life you built here over many years. Returning with you are those who are no longer with us – friends, neighbours, loved ones, and family members whose absence is deeply felt. Their presence lives on in every corner of this place.
The pain will always remain with us. Memory is part of who we are. It guides us and reminds us of our responsibility to remember, to tell their stories, and to carry them with us.
Alongside memory, however, there is life. There is the morning that arrives, the coffee on the porch, the greeting exchanged on a pathway, the garden that will grow, and the community gathering once again. There is hope, slowly and gently reclaiming its place.
The new homes you enter today symbolise the human capacity to carry grief and memory while continuing to build, plant, dream and grow.
The Israeli poet Natan Zach wrote, ‘A person is like a tree of the field; like the tree, he reaches upward.’ Perhaps there is no more fitting place for those words than here, on this land that has absorbed so many tears, yet still knows how to bring forth new life.
Welcome home. The home has been waiting for you. And so have we.”
For JNF Australia, witnessing the residents return to Nir Oz is both deeply moving and profoundly meaningful. Thanks to the generosity and commitment of our supporters, we have had the privilege of standing alongside the community throughout its journey of recovery and renewal. As families once again unlock their front doors, unpack their belongings, and begin rebuilding their lives, we are reminded that reconstruction is about far more than bricks and mortar. It is about restoring the heart, a sense of home, belonging, and hope.
