By The New York Times (World News) | Created at 2024-10-06 09:10:08 | Updated at 2024-10-06 11:31:05
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Before Oct. 7, Naama Giller let her children roam freely through her Israeli village on the border with Gaza. Her front door was rarely locked. She liked living in a place animated by communal festivities, outdoor life, the din of boys and girls playing.
Now, she darkens her home at night to avoid being targeted in strikes from Gaza. Most of the children in the village, Netiv Ha’asara, left and have not returned. Military patrols and the thud of bombs are the soundtrack to a spartan and ghostly life.
“Our village now is empty, deserted,” Ms. Giller said.
“I live here,” she said, “but I’m scared.”
One year ago, Hamas-led assailants raided Netiv Ha’asara and at least a dozen other villages, setting fire to them, killing residents in their homes and dragging hostages back to Gaza in a terrorist attack that the Israeli authorities said killed roughly 1,200 people and led to the displacement of thousands more. About 250 people in all were taken hostage.
Most of the residents from the worst-affected villages are still living elsewhere, in hotels or government-funded temporary housing. And for the few like Ms. Giller who have dared to come back, they are surrounded by the hard realities of war, and daily reminders of the trauma of Oct. 7.
The Giller family bought an extra refrigerator to stock up on supplies because there is now no grocery shop nearby and no neighbors to borrow from. Their youngest child, who is 8, sleeps in a room with fortified walls so he does not have to rush for shelter in the middle of the night during strikes. Any trip in or out of the village requires passing through a military checkpoint.
Ms. Giller, 49, who helps run the family’s farm, returned with her four children in March to reunite with her husband, Eyal Giller, 53. He was the only one of the village’s civilian residents who never left Netiv Ha’asara, which the regional council’s spokesman said had a prewar population of about 1,000.
