Rebuilding Be’eri: A Story of Resilience after October 7

Rebuilding Be’eri: A Story of Resilience after October 7

By: Shannon Bennett, ICEJ USA Director of Communications

In April, during ICEJ’s International Leadership Conference, I had the humbling privilege of standing in Kibbutz Be’eri—witnessing firsthand the work of rebuilding Be’eri—alongside several of my colleagues from the USA Branch and our global ICEJ family. I had met some of the survivors from Be’eri last year when they visited the United States to share their heartbreaking stories. But visiting this spring—walking past burned homes and bullet-scarred kindergarten walls—allowed me to experience the story through their eyes in a way that changed me forever.

On October 7, 2023, Be’eri—once a lush, pioneering kibbutz founded before Israel’s rebirth as a nation—endured unspeakable brutality. More than one hundred residents were slaughtered and over thirty kidnapped. Mothers, fathers, and children were gunned down or burned alive in their own homes. One of the survivors I’ve gotten to know, Naor Pakciarz, described huddling for twenty hours with his wife and four children in a safe room, hearing gunfire and screams as hundreds of terrorists rampaged through the community. He watched the final messages of friends appear in Be’eri’s WhatsApp group and could do nothing to help. His father-in-law was among those murdered.

Shannon Bennett, ICEJ USA Director of Communications at Kibbutz Be’eri

A Community That Refuses to Give Up

Be’eri’s tragedy is a scar on Israel’s soul, yet it is also a testament to resilience. This was one of the first kibbutzim planted in the 1940s—a bold Zionist dream to make the desert bloom—and that spirit still runs deep. Within a week of the massacre, the community reopened Be’eri’s print shop—the nation’s primary producer of ID cards, licenses, and vital documents. Four hundred employees returned, and their courage sparked a ripple effect that reopened the dining hall and other kibbutz services and eventually inspired neighboring communities to begin to rise from the ashes.

Rebuilding Be’eri: Providing a Safe Haven for Its Children

Even with all this progress, Be’eri’s children still lack the safe space they once had. The youth activity center, seized and destroyed by Hamas, had been the heart of the kibbutz—a place of laughter and learning. In April, we helped lay the cornerstone for a new center. It will be a place of healing and a tangible sign of life after horror.

ICEJ is walking with Be’eri on this journey. Through our presence, prayers, and partnerships, we are standing shoulder to shoulder with these remarkable people. But we cannot do it alone.

Rebuilding the Be’eri Youth Center is more than bricks and mortar. It is a declaration that evil will not have the last word. I invite you to join us in this endeavor. Your gift will help restore a place where children can laugh again, learn again, and dream again.