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SHEFAYIM KIBBUTZ, Israel − From thousands of miles above, Kfar Aza kibbutz looks like a misshapen stop sign filled with a patchwork of modest homes and buildings.
Like many of the more than 250 other kibbutzim − the plural word for kibbutz − throughout Israel, it’s surrounded by farmland. But just 1½ miles to the west, a fence separates this self-sustaining community from Palestinian land where Hamas fighters crossed and attacked its people on Oct. 7.
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"We could hear the attackers walking on the grass outside the window. There was a crunching sound because the leaves have started to fall down because of the season,” says Shaylee Atary, 34, who lives in Kfar Aza and is mother of a 1-month-old daughter.
Atary says she and her husband, Yahav Winner, 37, signaled silently to each other as the attackers broke through their window.
“Yahav looked at me for a quarter-second,” Atary said. “He didn't say goodbye, but I understood that it was like a kind of signal that I should run."
Two days later, the news arrived: her husband had been killed.
Stories like this unfolded at multiple kibbutzim along the Gaza border that weekend.
What is a kibbutz?
About 125,000 people live in kibbutzim in Israel. Historically a kibbutz was a communal and voluntary society, centered on agriculture, where residents subscribe to the social and financial contract that everyone is equal.
"In the traditional kibbutz, new Jewish immigrants, mostly from Eastern Europe in the early years, lived according to the socialist principle of 'From each according to their ability, to each according to their need,'" said David Leach, University of Victoria professor and author of "Chasing Utopia: The Future of the Kibbutz in a Divided Israel."
"That meant, they shared everything and made all their decisions by direct democracy," Leach said. "There was no private property and no personal salaries."
Leach said most communities began as farms, often situated in remote border regions to establish and then later defend the borders of Israel. Children were raised communally in a "children’s house,” which allowed women to work and take part in political decisions. Generations of extended families lived together and worked into their 70s and 80s, contributing to the kibbutz.
Where word the word 'kibbutz' comes from
The word "kibbutz" originated from the Hebrew word "kvutza," which translates to "group."
"Starting in the 1950s, kibbutzim began to industrialize and add small and then larger factories − some of which became very successful, like Kibbutz Be’eri’s printing company," Leach said. "Kibbutz members were often active in left-wing politics in Israel and the Labor Party, as well in elite Army and Air Force units."
In the mid-1980s, an economic crisis led to financial troubles for many kibbutzim. By the '90s, younger members began to abandon the indebted communities. As a result, many kibbutzim voted for “privatization,” Leach said. Communal child care was cut; then there were rollbacks in shared expenses, like free meals at the dining hall. By the 2000s, many kibbutzim began to allow residents to keep their salaries and own their homes.
What a typical kibbutz was like before the Hamas attack
"Today most of the roughly 270 kibbutzim in Israel are known as 'mitkhadesh' or 'renewed' communities, more like co-ops, rather than 'shitufi' or 'traditional' socialist economies," Leach said. "After decades of declining populations and aging demographics, the number of kibbutz residents has begun to grow again, and young families have returned to these small rural gated communities."
Kibbutzim can have 100 to 1,000 residents, and almost all have a protective perimeter of barbed-wire fence, a main gate and a guardhouse. "This is especially true for communities on the borders of Gaza and Lebanon," Leach said. Many kibbutzim have shared bomb shelters. Near Gaza, most have “safe rooms” in their homes and apartments because of frequent rocket and mortar fire. "These reinforced safe rooms, popularly known as a “mamad,” are required in all new buildings by Israeli law since the first Gulf War," Leach said.
Reports of attacks on kibbutzim
CNN obtained documents of Hamas' plan to attack cities and kibbutzim near Gaza. The documents contained highly detailed information including location of entrance gates, maps of the community, number of people who lived in the kibbutzim, whether there were guards or soldiers, location of weapons, meeting points and plans to kidnap and take hostages. Below are locations that USA TODAY could verify; it is not a complete list.
Nir Oz: Among the attacks on Oct. 7, the Guardian reported that a whole family was killed by Hamas. Reuters reported an elderly husband and wife were killed in the kibbutz, which is about a mile and half from the Gaza Strip border. The Associated Press reported that 74 year-old Ada Sagi was abducted. Days later, visual journalists detailed the blood, bullet holes and fires left after the attack.
Be’eri: In the small farming community, about three miles from Gaza, Israeli rescue workers say they discovered more than 100 bodies, about 10% of the kibbutz's population. Others have been reportedly kidnapped.
Alumim: Seventeen Thai workers were killed when Hamas attacked the kibbutz on Oct. 7. Members of a civilian army fought off attackers while others hid in a safe rooms until Israel Defense Forces arrived, the Guardian reported.
Kfar Aza: On the town’s perimeter, the gate that once protected residents was blasted open, according to reports from AP. Inside the settlement, militants used rocket-propelled grenades to blow the doors off homes. “You see the babies, the mothers, the fathers in their bedrooms and how the terrorists killed,” Maj. Gen. Itai Veruv, a 39-year veteran of the Israeli Army, told AP on Oct. 10 as troops went door-to-door to collect the bodies. "It's not a war, it's not a battlefield. It's a massacre. I've never seen anything like this, and I've served for 40 years."
Mefalsim: CNN reports that guards and members of the kibbutz fought off 15 to 16 attackers until the Israeli military arrived. The attackers killed at least one civilian and possibly others outside the kibbutz gates. A handful of residents were injured, but no one was killed inside the community
Kim Hjelmgaard reported from Israel, Ramon Padilla from California.
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