Netanyahu Visits Devastated Kibbutz Nir Oz

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made his first visit to Kibbutz Nir Oz on Thursday, 636 days after the community was ravaged in the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack. The visit comes nearly two years after the massacre, drawing both statements of hope and condemnation from residents and victims’ families.

“I am here with my wife Sara in Kibbutz Nir Oz, facing the sights of destruction, devastation and massacre,” Netanyahu said. “You feel to the depths of your soul the magnitude of the pain, the depth of the sorrow, the trauma that befell an entire community, and still befell it. I feel a deep commitment – first of all to ensuring the return of all our abductees, all of them. There are still twenty living and more dead, and we will return them all.”

Accompanying the Prime Minister, his wife Sara Netanyahu recounted a story of survival. “Sagi Dekel Chen, who was a prisoner and returned in the previous deal, showed me his little girl’s pacifier, who is three years old,” Sara Netanyahu stated. “She, her seven-year-year-old sister, and his wife, who was eight months pregnant, are three heroes. His wife, the two girls, simply held their ground in the shelter, held the door, jamming the changing table for this sweet little girl. And that’s how they were saved – with heroism and resourcefulness.”

Video footage from Kibbutz Nir Oz showed Prime Minister Netanyahu meeting with Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker. Zangauker, a known critic of the prime minister, was also seen embracing Sara Netanyahu.

Kibbutz Nir Oz released a statement regarding the Prime Minister’s visit, expressing its expectations. “We expect this visit to advance the return of the 50 hostages, among them nine from Kibbutz Nir Oz, and that the Israeli government will be committed to the rebuilding of the kibbutz and rehabilitation of its members wherever they choose to live,” the statement read.

However, the visit was met with protests by many who decried the almost two-year delay. Rauma Kedem, who lost six family members in the attack, condemned the timing in a letter to Ynet. “Two years later? The blood of my daughter, my son-in-law, and my grandchildren is on your hands. You abandoned this kibbutz. Do not dare set foot on these paths where my grandchildren used to play.”

Danny Elgart, whose brother Itzik, a hostage, was found dead in February, demonstrated on site. “Netanyahu missed the train. He can’t come now for a PR operation,” Elgart said, criticizing the Prime Minister’s prolonged absence since the attack. Families are demanding that the visit not be used for political purposes and are calling for accountability regarding the failures that led to the tragedy. The visit took place in a tense atmosphere, reopening wounds for a community still deeply affected by the horrors of October 7.