Mevo Hama

Mevo Hama occupies a site above the Sea of Galilee at the southern end of the Golan Heights.[3] The kibbutz stands approximately 350 meters above sea level and about 560 meters above the lake, which is roughly two kilometers away.[3] Its location combines views over the lake with the geographic remoteness and extreme weather that residents experienced over the years.[2]

The Golan has a documented Jewish history that predates the modern kibbutz by millennia. Biblical texts identify Golan in Bashan within the territory of Manasseh, and archaeological surveys have recorded ancient synagogues and Jewish symbols across the region.[4]

The community’s development has been closely connected with nearby Hamat Gader, where members worked in the management of the baths.[2] Agriculture formed another principal livelihood, while a separate expansion neighborhood was built north of the older kibbutz.[2]

Mevo Hama was established in 1968.[5] A list of settlements founded or being founded after the Six-Day War gives the date 22 January 1968, uses the spelling “Mevo Chama,” and identifies its affiliation as Ichud Hakibbutzim Vehakvutzot.[6] A 2026 Maariv commentary describes the founders as eight members from Jordan Valley kibbutzim working in coordination with the Settlement Department and settlement movements.[7]

In January 1968, members of the founding group settled temporarily at nearby Al-Hamma, living in railway-station buildings and using the railway workers’ house while preparing land and farming.[8] Security conditions delayed plans to develop Hammat Gader as a farming, tourism, and recreation center, and the group instead established its collective village about five kilometers northwest on the Golan plateau.[9]

By 1970, Mevo Hamma was listed among 12 Golan settlements, with an affiliation to Iḥud ha-Kibbutzim and placement in the south Hermon settlement group.[10] Another contemporary settlement listing likewise included Mevo Ḥammah among the Golan communities counted by 1970, in the context of the region’s post-1967 settlement expansion and development of agriculture, tourism, and industry.[4]

Mevo Hama began organizing for evacuation before the Yom Kippur War, but residents left only after hostilities had begun.[1] The preceding War of Attrition period in the Golan had involved shooting incidents, infiltrations, and roadside bombs.[1] At the time of the evacuation, approximately 1,500–2,000 people lived across the Golan Heights in a number of isolated communities.[1]

Resident Noga Regev recalled that adults initially hesitated to leave while awaiting instructions from Defense Minister Moshe Dayan.[1] At about two o’clock that afternoon, with the danger apparent, they decided to evacuate.[1] Chaim “Chaimke” Avni, a member of both Mevo Hama and the Egged transportation cooperative, was among the kibbutz residents connected with the wartime account.[1]

The delay meant that the usual evacuation route toward kibbutzim in the Galilee could no longer be used.[1] A bus carrying residents took a narrow, winding road, where a wheel came off and the vehicle nearly went over an abyss.[1] Regev remembered mothers and children getting out and pushing the bus back onto the road.[1] Evacuees were taken to Ein Harod, Afikim, and Dovrat; Regev, her mother, and her brothers went to Dovrat under a prearranged kibbutz-movement plan.[1]

Men were permitted to return home once the situation in the Golan sector stabilized, and all Mevo Hama residents had returned by the end of the war.[1] Security restrictions nevertheless kept the community isolated for about another half year, with residents unable to enter or leave and children continuing their lessons within the kibbutz.[1] Regev recalled the period as “half a year of detachment where we were isolated in lockdown.”[1]

Daily life during this isolation included unusual efforts to meet children’s needs: Regev remembered an army tank retrieving a daughter’s forgotten pacifier from Kibbutz Afikim.[1] She also recalled adults providing dolls on which children could practice putting casts after a friend’s father returned seriously wounded, with both legs in casts.[1] The exercise helped children respond to disability and helped her friend prepare for her father’s homecoming.[1]

Following the 2008 census, Mevo Hama was recorded with a population of 275 and classified as a kibbutz.[5] In 2021, its population was reported as approximately 500.[11]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, a couple living in Jaffa applied to join Mevo Hama after reconsidering city life.[11] The applicants, Eshkol, a hospice nurse, and Ross, a social worker, were working out how to transfer their employment to northern Israel while proceeding through the acceptance process.[11] Membership generally involved an interview, a year of residence as a candidate, and a subsequent vote.[11]

Before 2016, the kibbutz underwent full privatization and described itself as a “community in the landscape.”[2] Its newer residential expansion was separated from the original kibbutz and lay to its north.[2] A house profiled there in 2016 stood at the edge of a cliff overlooking the Sea of Galilee.[2] The single-story, 180-square-meter home used walls 30–40 centimeters thick, made from hemp fibers mixed with earth and designed to provide thermal insulation.[2]

Agriculture was one of Mevo Hama’s principal sources of livelihood.[2] By late 2023, its field-crop operations used GPS-based automatic tractor guidance, while spraying drones were used in orchards and fields.[12] The kibbutz’s business manager described automatic guidance as standard equipment for field crops, while Rami Laner said the system could achieve positioning precision of three centimeters.[12]

Wartime GPS interference intended to hinder Hezbollah attacks disrupted these systems in late 2023.[12] Younger operators struggled to drive tractors without automatic guidance, slowing sowing and spraying.[12] Rami Laner, then 73, returned to field-crop work after 30 years away to help with operations under these conditions.[12]

The interference also made spraying drones unreliable or unusable, prompting a return to tractors and less precise working methods.[12] In field crops, farmers marked spraying rows with flags spaced 18 meters apart.[12] Inaccurate or overlapping spraying could damage crops or contribute to the development of herbicide-resistant weeds.[12]

Managing the baths at Hamat Gader formed part of Mevo Hama’s economy alongside agriculture.[2] The site was held by four southern Golan kibbutzim: Mevo Hama, Kfar Haruv, Afik, and Meitzar.[13] Their longstanding arrangement with the state treated the site as a “means of production” for the kibbutzim.[13] A proposed transaction reported in 2026 concerned a 70% stake in the operating company, rather than ownership of the land or adjacent national park.[13]

Members of Mevo Hama began Hamat Gader’s crocodile attraction in the early 1980s, importing alligators from Florida and subsequently adding crocodiles from Africa and elsewhere.[14] In 2011, Mevo Hama was one of the four Golan kibbutzim managing the site.[15]

A distinct breeding operation developed at Mevo Hama itself.[16] Hamat Gader initially purchased 120 American alligators, whose offspring were transferred to the kibbutz for raising and fattening.[16] In 1993, the businesses separated, and Mevo Hama bought a breeding group of 250 adult animals.[16] The kibbutz constructed two six-dunam water reservoirs, raised hatchlings for two or three years, and sold skins abroad.[16]

The breeding business proved financially unsuccessful, and the kibbutz decided to close it.[16] Recorded losses amounted to NIS 35,000 in 1999, NIS 250,000 in 2000, and NIS 150,000 in the first eight months of 2001, with losses continuing in 2002.[16] By the time of a 2004 report, the remaining animals were being prepared for sale and export.[16]

Café Hama, a coffee cart in the kibbutz, offered views of the Sea of Galilee.[17] Its founders, Eran and Nofar, opened it because they wanted to work with people in a natural setting.[17] Its offerings included coffee, handmade desserts, cold beer, and Japanese fruit-flavored mochi.[17]

In December 2021, Israel’s cabinet held a special meeting at Mevo Hama to approve a regional development plan for the Golan Heights.[18] At the meeting, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett cited American recognition of Israeli control, while MK Ahmad Tibi called the Golan “occupied Syrian territory.”[18]

The wider territorial dispute concerns Israel’s acquisition of control over the Golan from Syria in the 1967 war and its application of Israeli law there in 1981, an action characterized as unilateral de facto annexation.[19] The general international position has treated the Golan as Syrian territory occupied by Israel, with its final status subject to negotiation.[19] The United States recognized the Golan as part of Israel in 2019, while others in the international community maintained that its status had not changed.[19]