Over 100,000 Israelis displaced by October 7 unable to return home

Around 100,000 Israelis have been displaced from their homes since the October 7 surprise Hamas attack and are unable to return six months on, Israel’s Channel 12 television reported on Sunday.

The channel said that the Israeli government had no vision for the period after the war, adding that it was not known when they would be allowed to return.

Israel’s The Marker newspaper, which focuses on economic affairs, also reported that around 20% of the Israeli families who were evacuated by authorities after October 7 had decided not to return to their homes in areas near the Gaza Strip.

They are now looking for new homes far away from the frontline, according to The Marker.

Israel evacuated the residents of towns and settlements near the Gaza Strip following the October 7 attacks, which killed around 1,160 Israelis.

Over 33,000 Palestinians have been killed in its indiscriminate attacks on Gaza since that date, most of them women and children.

Israel has also evacuated the residents of 28 towns and villages near the Lebanese border, in the wake of clashes with Hezbollah.

Over 500 homes, shops, and buildings have been damaged in the clashes, Al-Jazeera reported on Sunday.

The mayor of the border town of Kiryat Shimon, Avichai Stern, has said that residents of northern Israel cannot return so long as Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force is operating on the border.

The Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv has reported that many residents fo the north plan to sell their homes and permanently move to central Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously said that Israel is unable to tolerate the relocation of 100,000 displaced people.

In addition, former Israeli Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi has warned that the emptying of the border areas and the movement of Israelis to Gush Dan (the Tel Aviv metropolitan area) constituted a strategic threat.