Israel says most evacuees back in Gaza border area

JERUSALEM: Nearly all Israelis evacuated from their homes near the Gaza Strip in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attack have returned, Israeli authorities said Thursday.
More than 80 percent of the southern Israeli region’s 50,000-plus population have moved back by July, with 3,700 more people returning since, according to the government agency tasked with reconstruction and rehabilitation of the border communities affected by the deadly attack.
Israeli authorities had offered evacuees from the Gaza border area accommodation in hotels paid for by the state, but that arrangement expire on Thursday.
Residents of 10 kibbutz communities that were badly damaged in the Hamas attack will be given temporary housing for at least another year in various locations, Israel’s Tekuma Authority said in a statement.
A handful of other communities that are very close to the Gaza border have been declared unsafe due to the threat of rocket fire from the Palestinian territory, it added.
Their residents are still entitled to accommodation paid for by the government, while some have rented apartments elsewhere in the country.
On Tuesday, the Israeli defense ministry announced a pilot project to improve security along the Gaza border, with investments in fences, drones, command center and “specialized” communications infrastructure.
The Hamas attack which triggered the ongoing war in Gaza resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Militants also seized 251 people, 111 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 40,005 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which does not provide a breakdown of civilian and militant deaths.
The war has drawn in Iran-backed Hamas allies in the region, including the powerful Lebanese group Hezbollah, whose militants have been trading near-daily fire with Israeli forces since early October.
Tens of thousands of residents on either side of the Israel-Lebanon have been displaced by the violence, and the vast majority have yet to return.