I know, I'm a broken record, but I can't say this often enough, go down to the Otef to volunteer or just to visit a community that's come home. It makes such a difference. Maybe I'm the crazy one, but I think I would not be in the same place emotionally if I hadn't been going to the Otef almost every week and keeping tabs on how the situation is changing, talking to people on the frontlines and seeing for myself the incredible rebuilding of the region, and especially in the last year, all the people coming home, kids playing again in the playgrounds of once evacuated yishuvim.

Week by week, month by month seeing the changes, people who had been haggard ghosts in winter 2023 slowly coming back to life, smiling and hopeful in winter 2024. The picture is so much more complete when you see it up close, it takes your mind to different places than when you are mostly fed by other sources. And doing something, however small, to help means that you are not just being flooded with news stories which can leave you helpless and overwhelmed, you have a chance to make a difference (however small) where it's needed.
I was in Nahal Oz yesterday picking avocados and the kibbutznik we were working with also took us briefly around the kibbutz afterwards.

Nearly half the residents came home this summer. It's one of the kibbutzim that was badly hit, one of the last where people are starting to come home. It's going to take time, but already families with young kids have made the choice to come back, there are young people there on shnat sherut. I saw the home of Omri Miran (hostage who came back on Hoshana Raba) renovated and waiting for him if he chooses to return to the kibbutz.

The neighbourhoods that were ravaged by Hamas on 7/10 are rebuilt/restored for the most part with some ongoing repairs and work on renovating roads and infrastructure. There is an air of renewal and fresh coats of paint, a bright freshly painted mural on the hadar okhel, shiny new farm equipment and tractors replacing what Hamas and their civilian supporters burnt and stole. The fields are ploughed and freshly planted, the lawns neat, gardens bright with flowers and flags.

And yes, we could definitely still hear stuff from just over the border in Azza (this is not over yet), and there were constantly drones and quite a few booms. Tzahal still has work to do in the zones it still controls, mostly dismantling tunnels and other terror infrastructure.

There are areas here and there where you can look directly into Gaza across the border and you can see how many more of the tall buildings have been levelled, so that they don't loom over the Israeli side anymore and be used by snipers or for gathering intelligence on Israel. Definitely a lot fewer tall buildings than when I was in the area few weeks ago.

And the southern part of the now infamous Route 232 ("Death Road" as yesterday's group leader helpfully called it) is now being widened to two lanes in each direction, scorched trees on the verges cut down and covered by asphalt. 

All along the drive down posters welcoming back the hostages "כמה טוב ששבתם הביתה" and the roadsides lined with flags so that the returning hostages would see.