Three years after the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7 emptied communities along Israel's border with Gaza, residents are returning and new families are moving in.

(Image credit: Amit Elkayam for NPR)

Hundreds move back to the Kibbutz communities and southern Israeli cities that border Gaza. Many say they want to repopulate and help rebuild the region devastated by the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack.

One of the country's leading human rights organizations says Israel is dismantling all aspects of Palestinian life at a breakneck rate. The group has extensively documented what it says are the mechanisms Israel has used to "ethnically cleanse" the West Bank of Palestinians.

Israel expressed outrage after the U.K. declared "settler terrorists" are causing "ethnic cleansing" in the West Bank and banned imports from the settlements.

Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians — and an assault on a U.S. media crew — draw rare Israeli condemnations, but no arrests.