Here Lived
I have lived in this home for about 30 years, and it is full of happy memories. In the years before October 7, I usually stayed at my partner Anne-Marie’s home in Kibbutz Magen, which had become our main home together. We used my house in Nir Oz to celebrate holidays and host our children and grandchildren when they came to visit.
We called it “the B&B.”
October 7th
On Friday night, we were lucky to be staying in Magen. We woke up Saturday morning to rocket warning sirens and moved into the safe room.
It took us some time to understand that this was not just another round of rocket fire, and we stayed locked inside for the entire day. Throughout that time, our children were extremely worried about us. We later learned it was because they already knew, before we did, about the disaster unfolding at our home in Nir Oz.
We were saved thanks to Magen’s local emergency response team.
My home in Nir Oz was ransacked and burned. The terrorists turned the house upside down, and it felt as though they had been specifically looking for us.
Our family miracle was that none of my children had come to stay that weekend, and the house was empty.
When we entered the house a few days later, we were shocked by what we saw. What brought that miracle into sharpest focus were the framed photos of the grandchildren scattered across the floor, and my grandson’s empty gluten-free cornflakes box left on the counter, a small patch of color against all the black and ash.
As evening fell, we began to grasp the scale of the horror. Many friends had been murdered or taken hostage, among them Gadi Moses, my dear childhood friend.
What Happened Since
As the survivors of Nir Oz were being bused to Eilat, we too left Magen. At the last moment, we decided to first drive to Kibbutz Gal-On, to Anne-Marie’s son.
We stayed there for nearly a week, during which we learned of the size of the disaster and tried to figure out how to move forward. The following Friday, we decided together that our place was with the Nir Oz community, and we joined them at a hotel in Eilat.
Those three months in Eilat were hard on us, both physically and emotionally.
The move to Karme Gat in January 2024 marked a real turning point.
I became active in the community again, contributing however I could to keep the community together. We fought for the return of our hostages in every way we could.
Anne-Marie became an inseparable part of the Nir Oz community and has given, and is giving, everywhere she can.
Gadi Moses’s return from captivity completed another piece of our personal healing and gave us room to breathe again.
In the summer of 2025, we decided together that we are going home to Nir Oz and are working toward rebuilding the kibbutz. The house being built for us is expected to be ready in January 2026, and then we will return to live in Nir Oz. At home.
