Here Lived
The Phillips-Bahat family.
In October 2021, we returned to Israel and to Nir Oz after eleven years in the United States.
Our eldest daughter, Clil, stayed behind to continue her college studies.
On the eve of October 7, 2023, we were all in Nir Oz: Ron (57), Inbal (54), Tevvel (18), Sheffa (15), and Nova, our seven-year-old dog that we had brought with us from the United States.
October 7th
At 6:29 a.m., the sirens caught me, Inbal, sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee. Everyone was still asleep, including our dog Nova. I ran to the safe room, called Nova, woke Ron, and on the way woke Tevvel, whose room was along the corridor, so she could come in too. At that point, we still thought it was a “regular” alert, meaning two rockets and then back to our morning routine. We listened to the radio on our phones and noticed that not only were the rockets not stopping at two, but instead they continued in a relentless barrage. The radio reported that this might be a diversionary attack. When Shachar, the kibbutz security coordinator, wrote in the community chat that everyone needed to lock their safe-room doors, Ron ran to find sharp scissors and rope. He tied a drawer across the door to keep the handle in the locked position. The iron window shutter had a broken latch, so I had no choice but to lean against it myself and hold it shut.
We told Tevvel and Sheffa to get under the bed, and I placed pillows beside them to keep them hidden. Sheffa zoned out and retreated into a book. Tevvel stayed aware of everything happening around her, and as the minutes turned into hours, her fear intensified.
Nova, who had missed her morning walk, lay completely still without making a sound, as if by animal instinct she understood.
During the first hour, we still had communication with the kibbutz community chat and with the extended family (by text only). Slowly, the horror of what was happening outside became clear.
As if that were not enough, Ron, in his role at “Ackerstein Industries”, was trying to help coordinate the movement of concrete blocks to Yeruham.
Only Ron and I had the community chat on our phones, but my battery died and we hadn’t brought a charger into the safe room, so we were cut off from the kibbutz relatively early on.
When we learned that Or and Yagil Yakkov were alone in their home, Ron guided them by phone on how to secure their safe room with the limited means available to them. Sadly, we learned that evening that it hadn’t been enough.
At grandma Drora’s house were her sister Rivka and the grandchildren Rotem and Yogev. Ron also instructed them on how to barricade the safe-room door with bedsheets. Thankfully, they survived! Every home in the kibbutz faced a different situation, with terrorists carrying different weapons and different “degrees of brutality and evil”, and that is what accounts for the vast differences in what each person experienced that day.
During the hours we were locked in the safe room, terrorists entered our home more than five times and tried to force the safe room door open. Fortunately, they failed. Inside, we stayed completely silent, listening to the destruction happening in our home, terrified by the sound of a drill (we feared they were planting an explosive device), by the noise of gas leaking from inside and outside the house, and by constant gunfire, explosions, and shouting in Arabic.
A single bottle of water was all we had to drink during those endless hours.
We used a towel pressed against the door as a makeshift toilet, understanding that homes were being set on fire and that a wet towel might help keep out the smoke.
At about 5:00 or 6:00 p.m., a naval commando unit arrived. We told them we wanted to exit the safe room through the window, afraid that an explosive device had been attached to the door. We stepped out barefoot into air thick with smoke and the smell of burning. We were instructed to follow the soldiers to the emergency coordination shelter. Only there did we begin to comprehend the full scale of the horrors that had taken place.
What happened since
We returned to Nir Oz about a month and a half ago.
Sheffa is in twelfth grade at the Ramat HaNegev regional school.
Tevvel is serving in the IDF.
Ron is managing the reconstruction of Nir Oz.
Nova is enjoying the freedom and pleasures of kibbutz life.
I am informally involved in the campaign for the return of the hostages, putting up signs and flags, and keeping the kibbutz paths clean.
We long for better days, days free of fear, days when smiles outnumber the sadness, when “hostages” is a thing of the past. May those days come soon.
This text was written in September 2025:
Since then, the body of the last hostage, Ran Gvili, was returned on January 26, 2026. Many burnt houses have been demolished, and 10 new houses have been built. The foundations for many more houses are currently being laid. Things are getting brighter. I hope this is the direction we are moving toward. I, Inbal, am working in the Kibbutz landscaping/gardening department.
