‘Our decision alone’: Kfar Aza families face vote on homes reduced to ruins on Oct 7

Two hundred and fifty terrorists stormed the southern Israeli community of Kfar Aza on Oct. 7, 2023, a small kibbutz that was home to roughly 300 families and 850 residents. After three harrowing days of fighting, 62 residents were murdered and 19 kidnapped, with two others later mistakenly killed by IDF fire in Gaza.

This Thursday, kibbutz members will be presented with options ahead of a future vote on whether to demolish bullet-ravaged and burnt-out homes or preserve them as memorials. 

Following the onslaught, 97 structures were slated for demolition. Israeli news sources agree that the most sensitive issue remains the fate of Kfar Aza’s youth neighborhood. The last two hostages from that neighborhood, Ziv and Gali Berman, remained captive until October 2025. The kibbutz community, most of whom currently live 30 minutes away in Kibbutz Ruhama, committed to waiting until the last hostage returned before making a decision. 

A Ynet News report indicated that Kfar Aza residents will review proposals about whether to preserve the destroyed neighborhood in its original location as a public memorial center, or relocate select structures to a monument site directly outside the kibbutz and demolish the rest.

The kibbutz said in a statement, reported by the same source, that only community members “will decide on the right way for them to tell their story within the kibbutz and commemorate the murdered and the fallen, for themselves and for future generations,” adding, “We expect the government of Israel to assist the community in any way it chooses.”

Faced with a similar decision last summer, the community of Kibbutz Nirim opted to rebuild. Yehuda Kaplon, director of resource development at Nirim, told Israeli outlet Globes, “We decided that we didn't want to turn the kibbutz into a memorial site. There was unanimous agreement on this, including among the bereaved families.” 

“We are looking ahead and want to absorb families, not leave burned houses around the kibbutz,” added Kaplon, whose brother Dror was murdered with his wife Marcel in neighboring Kibbutz Be'eri. 

Ultimately, the weight of how to memorialize the atrocities Kfar Aza experienced on Oct. 7 rests with the community itself.

Visit KAN’s digital memorial project to read stories of heroism and the lives lost from Kfar Aza.