Israeli authorities have said nearly all Israelis evacuated from their homes near the Gaza Strip in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attack have returned, AFP reports.

More than 80 per cent of the southern Israeli region’s 50,000-plus population had 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 expires today.

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.