Kibbutz Be’eri will receive a 350 million shekel (about $100 million) reconstruction fund from the government, the largest sum given to any of the Israeli communities attacked by Hamas on October, Ynet learned on Sunday.
The Tkuma Directorate founded following October 7 to oversee reconstruction efforts in the communities impacted by the attack, is set to deliver its final building plans to the government in two months.
“We learned by seeing other disaster aftermaths across the world to treat this like an opportunity,” the directorate said in a statement. “The neighborhoods damaged in Be’eri are very old with some of the planning no longer being fit for the community’s needs. Other disasters showed that reconstruction is inadequate if members of the community aren’t involved in it.”
Doron Segev, an architect from the kibbutz, added that its members don’t wish to erect a memorial in the community. Some wish to uproot the damaged homes out of the kibbutz to become memorials while others said they wished to return to their original houses, even if they were damaged. The fund therefore will include the construction of a new neighborhood in the kibbutz in which members will live should they wish to part with their previous home.
“Most of the kibbutz members didn’t want to return to their previous home nor fix it because of their memories of it. It’s clear we won’t be able to undo what was done, but we’ll have to include memorials in a delicate manner according to the members’ wishes,” Segev said.