Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the Gaza border community of Kibbutz Nir Oz on Thursday, marking his first trip to the community since the October 7 massacre. At the entrance to the kibbutz, Netanyahu was greeted with a sign reading "Mr. Abandonment."
The visit comes nearly 21 months after the Hamas-led assault, which turned the kibbutz into a symbol of abandonment and failure by the state. One in four residents was either murdered or kidnapped during the attack.
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Kibbutz Nir Oz residents waiting for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
(Photo: Tomer Shonam Halevi)
Ahead of Netanyahu’s arrival, some survivors expressed outrage. Reuma Kedem, who lost six members of her family in the attack, stood at the gate and declared: “The blood of my daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren is on your hands. You funded this, you abandoned us and you brought this house to ruin with your own hands.”
Kedem warned Netanyahu not to turn the visit into a photo-op. “My dead family is not your PR backdrop,” she said. “This is not a market. Your armored cars and stylists aren’t welcome here. You won’t get the closure you seek—not on the blood of my children.”
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Danny Elgart, whose brother Itzik was kidnapped and whose body was returned in February, echoed that sentiment. “He’s too late. We’re here to tell him this isn’t a publicity tour. If he wants to come, he should first say ‘I am responsible for what happened here’—and then come.”
As of today, nine of the 50 remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza are from Nir Oz. Four are known to be alive: Eitan Horn, David and Ariel Cunio and Matan Zangauker. Five others have been declared dead in captivity, including Tamir Adar, Eliyahu Margalit, Ronen Engel, Aryeh Zalmanovich and Amiram Cooper.
In total, 76 residents of Nir Oz—including children, women and elderly—were kidnapped on October 7. Many were returned in hostage deals; others were murdered and their bodies recovered. Among those killed after being abducted were Shiri Bibas and her young sons, Ariel and Kfir. Her husband Yarden was released in a hostage deal.
Former hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen, who was freed from Gaza in February, previously invited Netanyahu for a personal tour: “No politics—just me and you, walking through the blood-stained homes and burned-out streets. Only the release of the hostages will bring true victory.”
For months, Nir Oz residents criticized Netanyahu for avoiding the kibbutz. He was absent even during the first anniversary of the massacre. At the time, Gal Hirsch, Israel’s hostage affairs coordinator, said, that "the prime minister said he will come—and he will.”
Bar Goren, whose parents Maya and Avner were murdered, said Netanyahu needed to experience the pain firsthand. “To understand what happened here, you need to be with us. Walk among us. Only from our lowest point can we rise again. That’s why we invited him.”
The military’s investigation into the battle of Nir Oz was so complex and traumatic that the IDF assigned a retired general, Eran Niv, to lead it. After eight months of testimony, evidence and intelligence gathering, Niv compared the horror to reading City of Slaughter, Haim Nahman Bialik’s poem on the 1903 Kishinev pogrom.
Unlike other attacks, there were no active combat forces in Nir Oz to debrief. The probe relied on testimonies from wounded survivors, captured Hamas terrorists and whatever intelligence was available. The picture it painted was bleak.
At the peak of the invasion, the kibbutz housed more terrorists than civilians—between 400 and 500 terrorists faced 385 residents. The kibbutz, located just 3 km (1.8 miles) from the Gaza border, had no IDF post protecting it. Residents held off the terrorists with sheer will, some physically barricading doors to safe rooms.
Out of the kibbutz’s 120 homes, only six were not breached. According to the IDF, the terrorists withdrew only after receiving an order from Gaza leadership around noon: “You’ve done enough.”
About 10% of the 5,000 terrorists who infiltrated southern Israel that day attacked Nir Oz. Without the courage of its residents, the IDF later concluded, the entire community could have been wiped out.