Until November 2023, 51-year-old Naor Shamia lived for 14 years with his wife Frederick and their three children in Kibbutz Manara in the Upper Galilee. With the outbreak of the war, Naor, as the head of the community's emergency team, joined the community guard force, and these days he goes back and forth from sleeping in Manara and Gadot, where his family is staying.
He talks about the extent of the destruction in the kibbutz he was forced to leave – and about the desire to return. "When I come to the kibbutz today, I see exactly what you see in the pictures. There's abandonment, it's reminiscent of the pictures from Chernobyl," Naor said.
Among the photos, he noted the one in which the windows of the house are completely shattered, and said: "That's how you see Manara from inside Lebanon, exactly from this angle. Many times, when they fired at us, they fired at the windows, because they knew that the buildings on the kibbutz were made of reinforced concrete. Even a house that was "only" hit by anti-tank weapons, and looks as if it only needs plastering and paint, may have to be demolished because of the destruction of the foundations."
He also spoke about the hope of returning to the kibbutz soon: "There is no question at all, we will return to Manara. I assume that at least 90% will return. Everyone wants to go back and rehabilitate the kibbutz. But all this is assuming that we feel safe here. And that's the big question - whether they will succeed in giving the residents here a real sense of security."
Sigal Vizhnitzer has lived on the kibbutz for the past nine years with her husband Zeevi and their two children, Gefen (13) and Ronen (15.5). Along with them is also the mother of 73-year-old Sigal Pnina, who moved to Manara in June 2023 and has been wandering with the family since Saturday, October 7.
In her role, Sigal welcomes the new kibbutz members who are absorbed into the community. The last members were absorbed at the end of 2023, a group of four or five families who moved to the kibbutz, but since then no new family has been absorbed.
Last Saturday, it was the first time she had visited Manara since they left their home. "I haven't been home for 14 months. On the one visit, I saw the fires and the destruction. It's very difficult, it's impossible to even describe it. It looks like real destruction. We are all mobilized as a community, I am sure that we will rehabilitate Manara, in one way or another. We will rehabilitate the community, we will strengthen it. But it will take time, little by little and in small steps. Where there is a will, there is a way. In the end, we will succeed."
* Ynet contributed to this article.
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