Here Lived
My name is Roni Adar. I’m 25 years old, the daughter of Yael and Moshe Adar. I am the fourth child after three sons, Tamir, Nir, and Inbar, and the third generation to the Adar family in Nir Oz. I was born and raised in Nir Oz and have lived here my entire life. I lived on the kibbutz until I was 21, going through the usual phases of kibbutz life: the children’s house, the youth house, military service. After the army, I went to work in Eilat and then traveled to Canada. I returned to Nir Oz in September 2023 and moved into my own apartment, not far from my brothers’ homes. During that month, I was busy settling in my new home and started working in the kibbutz’s children’s house. I was excited to be back in the kibbutz, with my family.
October 7th
The night before, on October 6, I was at a family dinner at my mother’s house in Moshav Sdeh Nitzan and stayed overnight. At 6:29 a.m. we awoke to sirens. I didn’t fully understand what was happening. My dad phoned us shortly after to tell us that terrorists had infiltrated Nir Oz. I spoke with him and with my grandfather, Yoram Adar, who told us that he saw the terrorists through his kitchen window, before we lost contact with the entire family. We knew Inbar had spent the night in Tel Aviv, so we weren’t as worried about him.
There wasn’t any reception in Nir Oz, so we didn’t know what was happening and were extremely concerned. At this point, my mom and I entered the safe room in Sdeh Nitzan. We locked ourselves inside and heard shooting outside. I was terribly anxious and stressed. At 1:00 p.m., my body shut down, and I fell asleep. When I woke up at 3:00 p.m., we were told that the army was on its way to Sdeh Nitzan. My brother Nir told us that he and his daughters had been rescued from their safe room in Nir Oz. Gradually, we started to realize that neither Tamir nor my grandmother Yafa had been located.
We established an operations room in Sdeh Nitzan, and called every hospital, the police, and any person who offered help. No one knew a thing about either of them. That evening, I went into Telegram and saw a video of my grandmother being abducted from Nir Oz on a mobility scooter. I notified my father and my entire family. This was how we’d learned that she’d been abducted.
Understanding what had happened to Tamir took longer. For an entire week, kibbutz members searched for him throughout the kibbutz and the fields and couldn’t find him. After about a week, we were told that his phone was located in Gaza, and it was only then that we began to suspect that he had also been abducted. This was officially confirmed one month later.
Two months later, on December 2023, I arrived in Nir Oz for the first time since October 7 to see what had happened. I saw my home, its safe room window broken. It was hard for me to process what I was seeing, as I was still terribly afraid of terrorists, as though they were still in the kibbutz. Grandma Yafa returned in the November 2023 hostage deal.
What Happened Since
The entire Nir Oz community relocated to a hotel in Eilat for 3 months. After Eilat, I moved to Karme Gat with my family. My focus and entire life have been devoted to the struggle to bring home Tamir. Until they returned in October 2025, I felt like it was impossible to move forward. Now that Tamir and all the hostages are back home, we can finally start living.
