After two years of war, some Israelis are moving to the Gaza border while others are refusing. Here’s why

(CNN) — Before the horrors of October 7, Aya Shahar never considered leaving her busy life in the bustling metropolis of Tel Aviv and moving south to an agricultural life in a kibbutz near the Gaza border.

“It wasn’t the future I planned for myself,” Shahar told CNN.

But after Hamas-led militants stormed through border fence in 2023, killing more than 1,200 in Israel and taking more than 250 people hostage, Shahar felt a need to help rebuild the kibbutzim that were ravaged and subsequently emptied in the wake of the attacks.

A kibbutz is a type of Jewish agricultural commune built on socialist principles. Much of the area along Israel’s border with Gaza is made up of kibbutzim, and the communities have played an important part in the national psyche throughout the country’s existence.

“What happened there made me understand that I have no way of living my life without connecting (it) to what is going on here,” Shahar said.

The 29-year-old is one of nearly 2,500 new residents who moved to kibbutzim close to the Gaza border since October 2023, according to data from the Tekuma Administration, the Israeli government agency responsible for the rehabilitation of communities in the area.

The new arrivals join some 62,000 returnees who have gradually come back to their homes after a lengthy displacement, during which the area was declared a closed military zone.

Some have returned home in defiance of the war, while others who never previously lived there have moved to help repopulate the empty kibbutzim.

Reviving a peace movement

Shahar joins a group of peace activists who want to revive a leftist movement that first flourished in Israel in the 1950s.

Hashomer Hatzair, “The Youth Guard” movement, was founded in eastern Europe on the eve of the First World War, based on a Zionist ideology espousing socialism and farming, with life in the kibbutz perceived as the correct way of living.

Aided by the Kibbutz Movement Rehabilitation Fund – which is dedicated to supporting and guiding communities on their recovery – some 100 members of Hashomer Hatzair have started new lives in kibbutzim just miles from the Gaza border.

Yarden Machol, spokesperson for Hashomer Hatzair, said that the movement is calling for an end to the fighting and future co-existence.

“We need to do a peace agreement. It would be the best thing ever,” Machol told CNN. “We’re really into peace.”

Israelis publicly calling for peace with Palestinians has become increasingly rare since October 7.

In the Peace Index survey from Tel Aviv University, which was published in March, only 20% of Israeli Jews said they believed in the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, but 92% said they believe the continuation of the conflict harms their country. A total of 47% supported the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in Gaza after the end of the war, and 71% supported Israel providing incentives that would lead to the voluntary departure of Palestinians from the strip.

Nonetheless, the majority of Israelis believe it is time to end the conflict in Gaza, according to multiple polls. A survey by the Israel Democracy Institute in September found that two years on from the Hamas attacks, 66% of Israelis said the time has come to end the war in the battered enclave.

The shrinking peace movement in Israel is seen by many Israelis as aspiring to an unachievable fantasy, with some of its proponents saying they face mockery.

Shahar says that when she says she is pro-peace, people ask her, “Do you not want to be safe?”

Avshalom Zohar Sal, 28, who moved to Nir Oz in August with his girlfriend after witnessing the events of October 7, has had similar experiences.

Sal says that most of Israeli society struggles to imagine peace after two years of violence.

“I think after October 7, it’s hard to see a different reality,” he said.

Israel’s current government is the most far right in the country’s history. Extremist figures such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich not only oppose peace with Gaza, but are also calling for the expulsion of the enclave’s population. Both have called for Jewish resettlement in the territory.

The fear of returning

But even as new residents repopulate the kibbutzim, some of those who lived through the horrors of October 7 aren’t ready to return.

Yaron Maor, 41, lived in Kibbutz Nir Oz when it was attacked in 2023. He lived there with his wife and four children, the youngest of whom was seven.

Maor described how, as he and his family hid in a safe room, he could hear militants going through their home searching for people.

“It was …7:50 am and I understood that there is nobody who can help us out, there are no forces,” Maor told CNN. “I had this very clear feeling – or an understanding – that I was going to die.”

Maor and his family were rescued in time, and were relocated to Eilat, in southern Israel, along with many of the kibbutz residents who survived. To this day, however, he refuses to return home.

“You have to understand the situation we’re in. We’re exhausted. We fought for every inch of survival. The father of my wife was kidnapped… We’re trying to deal with our own trauma, our children’s trauma,” he told CNN.

Nir Oz was among the most heavily damaged kibbutzim on October 7. A total of 93 houses were destroyed, with only six escaping damage, according to Neri Shotan, CEO of the Kibbutz Movement Rehabilitation Fund. Of its 420 residents, 47 were murdered and 76 were kidnapped.

“We saw bodies. Many bodies,” Maor told CNN.

Even amongst those who have come back to the Gaza border, the fear of another attack lingers.

In March, Michal Rahav was one of the first people to return to her home in Kibbutz Nirim, just four miles east of the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza. At first, she had told herself she would never come back to where it all happened, but later she changed her mind.

Now, she feels strongly about being back in her home, saying that no one should be able to drive her out.

“They, and by they I mean Hamas, live on the myth or belief that where I live belongs to them and I have no right to exist,” she said. “If they launch an attack on us, there’s a price to pay.”

While a ceasefire is currently in place, Rahav says that the silence it has brought makes her feel uneasy.

“The explosions meant that I am being protected, because I know the (Israel Defense Forces) IDF is working and doing what it needs to do to make us safe,” she told CNN. “Now that there’s a ceasefire and everything is quiet, I don’t know what the other side is up to.”

For Shahar, she believes there should be nowhere in Israel that citizens are afraid to live.

Peace with the Palestinians is the only way residents can feel truly safe, she said. “I want to make it a good place to live in.”

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CNN’s Eugenia Yosef contributed reporting.