Just over a week ago, we visited two new buildings in South Tel Aviv to gather insights for The Jerusalem Post, a newspaper for which I have been contributing articles and video reports since 2018. On a street in the up-and-coming neighborhood of Florentin, almost the entire Kibbutz Re’im is living in two buildings. A kibbutz is an Israeli concept for communal housing where people live, work, and play together in rural areas around the country. Kibbutz Re’im was one of the many communities attacked and overtaken by Hamas terrorists. The homes were burnt down, and many people were violently killed.
When we approached the two buildings allocated to house this entire community, we saw tons of kids playing in a courtyard. It looked like there was a playground, but it was just a bunch of families with their little ones running around on cement – a whole lot different than what families from the green southern community of Re’im are used to. We opened the gate and entered the area. We had no idea what to expect, but I began to introduce myself to people sitting on benches, explaining in Hebrew who I was and why I was there.
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Someone directed me to Shani Medina. He spoke English. He and his wife and two small children survived the attack. This little family and 400 other Kibbutz Re’im members officially moved into twin buildings on Herzl Street in mid-December. The city of Tel Aviv pulled together an absorption program and, in addition to providing housing, is also working to offer benefits for families who needed to be evacuated from the Gaza envelope following the massacre on October 7, 2023.
The Israel Business Forum was also a substantial part of making this happen. This forum is made up of 200 of Israel’s largest company leaders, including executives of large banks, insurance, energy companies, and others. Together with the city, these movers and shakers were able to take over units in the new twin building complex to house Kibbutz Re’im residents for one year. The idea is to keep the community together and to get people out of hotels, where they were previously living in Eilat. Everyone I spoke with said the number one relief of the housing is being able to cook for themselves for the first time in three months.
Families with more than three children are given two apartments within the building, one for sleeping in and one for cooking and living in. Medina said while his Kibbutz friends are happy for the housing, they are finding it tough to live between two units.
Shani Medina was in Kibbutz Re’im, where he worked to protect his family for 30 hours straight while hiding in a bomb shelter. He was the one to bravely, on that day, leave the safe room and come back from the kitchen with food for the kids. In the south of Israel, most homes have one reinforced room to protect them from Hamas rocket fire, which had been raining down on Israel since 2007. At one point, Medina left his family in the room to assist soldiers who came to the Kibbutz to help. He showed them where to go and pointed out the houses where people had not responded since the early morning. Medina was supposed to be on the Kibbutz’s first responder force but told us his weapon never came. He had been waiting for it for more than a whole year, and it was ordered through the army.
Let’s hear from Shani Medina about his experience raising a family in Tel Aviv and what that transition has been like for him.
“The Tel Aviv municipality definitely did whatever they can to help us feel like we are in some kind of home,” Medina explained. “The DNA is very different. We always want to go back to the land, to the ground. And if we can and if the situation allows us, we will return to the Kibbutz the minute we can, the minute we have full security.”
After we finished speaking with Mr. Medina, a stunning woman named Reut Karp came walking through the courtyard. Her face was shining, and her eyes were so green and piercing. Who is that woman? She stood up tall and was very confident. It completely hid the immense trauma and challenges she’s been dealing with since October 7th.
Karp is a 42-year-old mother of three. On October 7th, her former husband was shot dead by Hamas terrorists in front of their kids. He had been trying to defend two of their three children who were at home that day. He came after the terrorists with an ax. Three Hamas fighters entered their house. Karp had been separated from her husband for just three months when this tragedy happened. He was with their children in his home. Karp was in a different city that Saturday, despite also having a home on the Kibbutz that she was newly living in without him. She found herself coaching and guiding her ten-year-old girl on the phone that terrible morning, telling her that the army would arrive soon to rescue her.
While trying to keep her daughter calm, Karp was pumping out messages to anyone she could, trying to bring attention to the terrorist invasion. The terrorists found Karp’s two youngest who were at home during the murder. Little Darya was hiding under a blanket when a Hamas terrorist found her. He lifted the blanket, put it back down on her, and then wrote on the walls in Arabic that they “don’t kill babies” and left the house.
“I cannot complain about anything after October 7. All the people here are trying to make it easier for us; they even donated bicycles for the kids here so they can feel like they live in a Kibbutz,” Karp said. She explained how children are learning the rules of city living, figuring out where to go to see grass, and understanding how the bus works.
“They [her children] are in the room, and they don’t go out at all. Not even to play with their friends. I think they are protecting themselves from the world, and I cannot know if it’s the trauma or because… this is what they would have chosen to do without the trauma,” Karp said.
When asked about his emotional state, Medina told The Post that he and most people he knows are still in the “fighting zone,” trying to understand what will be with their homes at the Kibbutz or their jobs, which many have not been engaged with since October 7.
Evacuees who are now living in Tel Aviv are getting assistance from the city and being treated as full residents. They are also getting free veterinary services, reduced-rate parking spots along the beachfront, and an opening to join the My Digital application, which offers reduced-cost event tickets and programming especially for Tel Aviv residents. Forty girls and boys from the Kibbutz in grades one through eight are set to study at a nearby nature school as well.
The Ministry of Education is opening short-term and long-term psychological services and programming for the Kibbutz evacuees, as well as tuition-free education for their kids.
The Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality took in 20,000 evacuees from the South and North, with about 9,300 evacuees in the city from Sderot, Nir Am, Karmia, Ashkelon, the Meta Asher Regional Council, and Kiryat Shmona. They are housed throughout 101 hotels.
“It’s important to say again that without the nice people, the good people, the people of Israel who came for us… fast and without any questions… they just came with anything we needed. Without that, I don’t know where we would have been. They helped us with every step we made,” Medina said.
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