By Marelinke van der Riet

During our recent Envision pastors conference in Jerusalem, delegates visited the Eshkol and Sha’ar HaNegev regions in southern Israel, where they could still see evidence of the devastation left behind by the October 7 massacres. Yet they also heard stories of resilience and hope and determination to rebuild and move forward. One such story stood out.

Orit is a native of Kfar Aza who recounted for the pastors her once peaceful life on the kibbutz and her dreams of living harmoniously with their nearby neighbours in Gaza. But on that dark day 16 months ago, her dream was shattered.

“We saw things our own eyes could not believe,” Orit shared, noting that 64 members of Kfar Aza were killed and 19 more taken hostage during the October 7 pogrom.

In what she described as ‘divine intervention,’ Orit had spent the night before in Tel Aviv due to a strange sense of looming danger. Thankfully, her four children also were not at home that night. However, her former husband Omer was still on the kibbutz and was killed on his way to open the room where the regional council’s guns were stored. It would be 30 hours before Orit received the devastating news of his death.

“Why did this happen to us? Because we are Jewish. We were naïve; we thought we could live by the fence,” said Orit. “People asked me, ‘How could you live like this?’ I said, ‘This is temporary. One day we will be able to talk to the Gazan people. It’s their government who are terrorists, not them.’ But on October 7, we woke up to a different reality. In the first weeks after October 7, I went to eight funerals a day for two weeks. I knew everyone and wanted to honour them all.”

“We cannot continue our healing while there are still hostages in Gaza,” she lamented.

Yet amid her lingering grief, Orit is upbeat about the future.

“We will not let them win,” she resolved. “I want to live well and go back to my home in Kfar Aza. We want to rebuild our life. I want my grandchildren to be raised like I was. We must rebuild, even more beautifully than before.”

“I see people like you, and you give me hope that most people in the world are good, unlike those who came on October 7 and killed my family and friends,” she told the Envision pastors.

Today, Orit is living in temporary housing at Kibbutz Ruhama, which has been set up for evacuated residents of Kfar Aza until they can finally go home in a year or more. Until then, they are sticking together as a tight community to gain strength and comfort from each other.

The ICEJ is helping to rebuild community buildings in Kfar Aza and other hard-hit Israeli farming villages near the Gaza border. Please support this work through our Israel in crisis fund.

Main photo: Orit shares her story with the Envision pastors.