Here Lived
This is Michal and Gil Shamir’s house. 62 years old. Parents of Maya, Ofer and Rotem. Michal is originally from the kibbutz. Gil has been on the kibbutz for the past forty years.
October 7th
On October 7th, with the sounding of the Red Alert sirens, we ran to our safe room – without our clothes, without our cellphones, without anything. For the first hour, we managed to maintain contact with our family via the computer and landline, but after that we lost all contact with the outside world.
The terrorists tried to break in, firing at the safe room door, but they didn’t get in. After a number of failed attempts, they ravaged our house, destroying everything they could. Then, they drilled a hole in the wall into the gas pipe and lit the house on fire while we were inside. As the safe room filled with smoke, we lay down on the floor. After a long time, when the safe room door began to burn, we opened the window just a crack. It was only after eleven hours, when we heard voices speaking in Hebrew, that we climbed out of the window and joined the other survivors in the shelter. There, we found that our son Rotem and Michal’s mother, Hana, were in the shelter with other family members, and that Dolev and Michal’s niece, Arbel Yehud, were missing, as were many others from the kibbutz.
What Happened Since
Eight months later, we were all informed that Dolev had been murdered on October 7th. Arbel returned after 482 days in captivity.
After a short and difficult stay in a hotel in Eilat, we moved temporarily to Tel Aviv and we stay in touch with the rest of the Nir Oz community.
