2 years after attack, residents of Israeli kibbutz conflicted about returning home

Mr Avishay Edri, 41, has happy memories of raising his four children in Nahal Oz, just a few hundred metres across potato and sunflower fields from the border with the Gaza Strip.

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But it is also where they spent 17 hours locked in a bomb shelter hiding from Hamas gunmen who killed 15 people in Nahal Oz and took eight back to Gaza as hostages on Oct 7, 2023.

Since Hamas and Israel agreed on a ceasefire in October, relative calm has returned to the area, but Mr Edri and other residents say relief is mixed with foreboding about what the future holds.

“We are very conflicted about moving back,” Mr Edri told Reuters by telephone from a kibbutz in northern Israel.

“It has become very important to go back for the emotional closure after the helplessness and humiliation we went through,” he said.

“But this conflicts with the logic about what will happen next.”

The 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israeli communities led to two years of war until the ceasefire brokered by US President Donald Trump.