It began with an emergency letter that should never have needed to be written.
Addressed to the prime minister, the finance, health, and welfare ministers, and senior decision makers, it arrived on December 1.
“We, the directors of the resilience centers in the Gaza border region and its surrounding communities, issue an urgent call to stop a dangerous and immediate move that threatens to collapse the mental health safety net of the residents.
“The planned cut and the failure to transfer the 2025 budget are not a technical change or a bureaucratic disagreement. This is a severe blow that will lead to a dramatic regression in therapeutic care and will endanger the ability of the entire region to recover.”
For anyone living in the Gaza border communities, this was not a bureaucratic notice. It was a distress signal from regions that have endured over 20 years of rockets, infiltrations, and sleepless nights, followed by the profound trauma left in the wake of October 7.
I entered this landscape during my first week as director of international relations for the Sha’ar HaNegev Regional Council. I was on my way to my first major philanthropic meeting, where we were scheduled to present one of the most forward-looking initiatives to emerge from the past year. The Community Resilience Village is an innovative campus that will integrate therapeutic care, community life, and advanced research and training. It is designed to serve the Western Negev and become a national and global model for addressing continuous trauma.
Just minutes before the meeting began, I overheard Nadav Peretz, the director of our Resilience Center, speaking quietly with Deputy Mayor Adam Azran.
“They just told us from the Health Ministry. They plan to cut our budget by up to 50%.”
The timing felt unreal. As we prepared to present a long-term vision meant to support the next generation, the state was simultaneously cutting the operational funding that keeps trauma therapists, social workers, and mental health teams functioning each day.
This contrast has become a defining feature of life in the Gaza border area.
Local leadership plans decades ahead, focused on rebuilding communities and strengthening civic resilience. National politics, by contrast, often moves according to short cycles, driven by immediate pressures and the temporary illusion of quiet that preceded the catastrophe of October 7.
Our mayor, Ori Epstein, embodies a different kind of leadership. On October 7, he lost five members of his family, including his eldest son, his mother, a nephew, and two brothers-in-law, one of them Ofir Libstein, who served as head of the Sha’ar HaNegev Regional Council. Out of this devastation, he chose to lead.
Speaking in the Knesset on December 1, he said:
“October 7 is the greatest disaster the State of Israel has ever known. Some call it the destruction of the first Zionist home. I personally lost five family members. And I chose this place to rise up. To rehabilitate the Gaza border area, knowing that our ability to recover has an impact that far exceeds the boundaries of this region. It affects the entire nation, both those residing in Zion and the Diaspora.”
Addressing the planned cuts, he continued:
“Our resilience centers are not a privilege and they are not supplementary. They are the basis that allows people to breathe and to try to return to a normal life cycle. The idea that these centers might close is simply inconceivable. Our ability to rehabilitate and grow is based first and foremost on trust. Trust comes from stability. If we dismantle this stability, we dismantle hope itself.”
In his formal municipal statement, he added:
“Anyone who cuts resilience funding now harms our ability to bring life back to the Gaza border region. Our growth depends on the resilience of our residents. Do not cut the budget. Do not stop our growth.”
The importance of resilience in rebuilding the Gaza border area
These words reflect a deeper truth. In our region, resilience is not theoretical. It is the foundation of daily life. It is what enables a child to sleep again, a teacher to return to the classroom, a social worker to guide a family through crisis, a farmer to work the fields, and a bereaved parent to take the next step forward.
This is why Sha’ar HaNegev continues to build the future even as operational budgets shrink.
The Community Resilience Village is our answer. Spanning 60 dunams, it will include trauma therapy units, body mind clinics, animal-assisted treatment, complementary medicine, cultural spaces, green communal areas, and the world’s first research and training center dedicated to continuous trauma. It aims to transform the Gaza border region from a passive subject of study into an active global leader in resilience knowledge.
It is also important to acknowledge that the government, through the Tekuma Authority, is a significant partner in the physical construction of the Community Resilience Village. Tens of millions of shekels in dedicated Tekuma funding are enabling the building of the new Resilience Center, the social services complex, cultural structures, and other key components. These investments are essential.
Yet here lies the core contradiction.
Capital investment builds structures. Operational cuts risk emptying them. Without stable funding for therapeutic professionals, programming, and mental health services, the physical campus cannot serve its purpose. This is the gap residents feel most acutely.
At the same time, global Jewish leadership has stepped into the vacuum with a long-horizon view.
Jewish Federations across North America, KKL, JNF, Keren Hayesod, and leading Jewish organizations worldwide have become strategic partners. They understand that rebuilding the Gaza border communities is not a short-term undertaking. It is a generational imperative.
Their support already fuels multiyear therapeutic programs, clinics, the House for Bereaved Families, community infrastructure, and central components of the Community Resilience Village. They invest where political systems hesitate. They choose long-term stability over temporary solutions.
Their commitment sends a clear message. The frontier communities of Israel will not face their trauma alone.
That morning, after Nadav received the news of the cuts, we walked into the meeting anyway. We presented the vision with clarity. We chose responsibility over despair, long-term rebuilding over reactive crisis management. We demonstrated that although the challenges are immense, the possibilities for renewal are equally significant.
The question now is whether the state will join this partnership wholeheartedly.
If the resilience centers falter, the region falters. And if hope weakens in the Gaza border area, it weakens across the nation.
This region can become a symbol of collapse or a symbol of rebirth.
With committed local leadership and steadfast Jewish global partnership, Sha’ar HaNegev chooses rebirth.
The writer is the director of international relations for the Sha’ar HaNegev Regional Council, dedicated to advancing global partnerships and sharing the region’s story of resilience and renewal.