AP journalists went to tell the story of a kibbutz and its people severely hurt in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. The story of the people of Nahal Oz started decades ago, but its name became known worldwide when Hamas attackers swept through the community on Oct. 7. Thousands fled from Nahal Oz and other kibbutzim. They were traumatized, seeing friends and family killed and kidnapped. How could they ever return?
As time passed and people spent months and months away from their homes, AP writer Adam Geller started talking to members of the kibbutz and planned to visit.
Geller teamed up with video journalist Sam O’Neill and photographer Leo Correa in Israel and visited the still mostly empty kibbutz, which sits close to the border with Gaza, and spent days with the people, most living in a dorm-like setting in a safer part of the country.
With the care of those recording history, the team used extended interviews and multiple trips to talk to the people. Geller, Correa and O’Neill wove the new story of Nahal Oz — no longer a place but a group of people determined to stay together and maybe, one day, return to their tiny farming community at the edge of the nation.