In the days following the brutal Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, Dafna - a lush and serene kibbutz perched near Israel’s northern border found itself under relentless rocket fire from Hezbollah. Families who had lived in a quiet routine for decades were forced to flee, becoming internal refugees in their own country.
The sounds of sirens and explosions replaced the normal rhythm of life. Parents shielded children from fear. Elderly residents, many of whom had spent decades tending the land and building their homes, were driven once again from the community they were rooted in.
When I spoke with Lt.-Col. (Res.) Eyal Dror, a resident of the kibbutz, I heard the voice of a builder, a neighbor, a husband, a father – a man deeply rooted in his land and community. Dror was the founder of Israel’s largest humanitarian mission to date, Operation Good Neighbor, through which the Jewish state rescued and cared for thousands of Syrian civilians during the Syrian Civil War. His words regarding his beloved kibbutz echoed a truth I have seen across Israel since October 7: a quiet, determined resilience that rarely makes headlines but shapes the nation’s future.
Dror spoke of neighbors returning after evacuation, of families choosing to come back even when opportunities lay elsewhere. “We had the option to not return,” he said, “but we didn’t hesitate for a second.” His wife and children didn’t want to stay on in central Israel. They chose to return to the place they had always called home, to live among friends and familiar surroundings, and to rebuild the life they knew and loved.
By the start of summer 2025, more and more families returned, and today, an astonishing 95% of the kibbutz residents are back. The vision for Kibbutz Dafna now, that Dror shared with me, is to emerge even more lively and appealing than before the evacuation, offering incentives for residents to return and inviting people from across Israel to visit this forward-thinking, resilient community.
This is not just his story: It is the story of Israel today
Following Hamas’s October 7 attacks, 200,000-250,000 Israelis were forced or chose to evacuate from border areas in the North and South; by June 2024, nearly 90,000 remained internally displaced. Hezbollah alone fired over 8,000 rockets and other explosives into northern Israel.
In another nation, such a crisis might have triggered endless protests, government collapse, or despair. But here, resilience is instinctive. Israelis tend not to cry out before the world. They do not demand sympathy or perform victimhood. Instead, they quietly rebuild, smile, plant, create, and strengthen their communities.
ONE OF the most powerful symbols of this rebuilding is the community garden in Dafna, which has become a living hub for connection, learning, and renewal. The kibbutz management decided to plant a wide variety of vegetables for the entire community, open 24/7, allowing residents to pick fresh produce for meals or enjoy it at the kibbutz mini-market, free of charge.
Volunteers from the community help harvest and stock the mini-market, ensuring that everyone can benefit. Beyond providing food, the garden is a space for education and intergenerational connection: children participate in after-school programs, learning to sow, tend, and harvest while gaining a tangible connection to the land. On Shabbat, families gather there to share stories, bake bread together, and celebrate with music, wine and laughter, blending secular and cultural traditions.
The garden has also become a place for practical skills, self-reliance, and community bonding. Children and parents knead dough, cook together, and participate in shared activities, fostering relationships across ages. What makes it truly special is how it embodies the kibbutz’s vision of resilience: cultivating the land, nurturing human connections, and creating a vibrant, self-sustaining community that is rebuilding not only homes but also the social fabric of Dafna.
THAT IS precisely why the world often misunderstands Israel’s plight. Since Israelis do not play the perpetual victim, their suffering is minimized. Yet beneath the surface lies the most profound form of resilience: Zionism itself. The return of an ancient people to their land, weathering attacks and wars, and, despite varying levels of faith or spirituality, maintaining an unbreakable connection to the soil of their ancestors.
Terror was meant to drive them away; instead, it has done the opposite. Every attack deepens belonging. Every loss becomes a reason to build again. From kibbutzim in the North to towns near Gaza, the message is the same: We are not going anywhere.
As the Torah portion of Nitzavim was read in synagogues and Jewish homes around the world just recently, its words took on renewed urgency: “See, I have set before you today life and goodness, death and evil… choose life, so that you and your offspring will live” (Deut. 30:15,19). This is not a passive command. In Dafna and across Israel, it is a daily, living choice. Families return. Gardens are planted. Shops reopen. Children attend school on the border. Life is actively chosen, again and again, in defiance of terror.
Resilience here is not loud, nor is it always visible. It is in children laughing and digging in the soil. It is in families reopening shuttered businesses and rebuilding homes – not because it is easy, but because belonging demands it.
“To me, resilience is seeing my wife and her friends sharing a glass of wine together after being away from home for so long,” Dror says. “They remain cautious, fully aware of what happened on October 7 and the ever-present threat of Hezbollah, yet they choose to live, to laugh.”
This resilience is the heartbeat of Israel. It is quiet, stubborn, and powerful. It is the refusal to be uprooted, the choice to plant and rebuild, and the courage to love one’s land even when surrounded by danger. And it is this spirit, not victimhood, that ensures the Jewish people will endure, rebuild, and thrive in their homeland – again and again.
The writer is a German-Indian writer dedicated to strengthening ties between Israel and the global community.