Kan 7.10.360 | Yahalomi family from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7

Batsheva and Ohad and their children, Ethan (12), Yael (10) and their one and 8-month-old baby, wake up to the sound of alarms and explosions. The family members quickly enter the safe room, Ethan's bedroom.

In the local application, a message is received about terrorists who are near the kibbutz clinic, adjacent to the home of Batsheva and Ohad.

From inside the safe room, family members begin to hear screams in Arabic and the sounds of gunfire. They try to close the door of the protected room, but it does not close. Batsheva shows her one and 8-month-old daughter videos on her phone so she'll be quiet, hoping the terrorists will think there's no one home. In those minutes, Ohad corresponds with people connected to the military and asks for help. To Bathsheba, he says quietly: “The situation is not good.” As the sound of gunfire intensifies, the children hide under the table in the safe room.

Ohad continues to catch up on the local WhatsApp group and realizes that terrorists have infiltrated the kibbutz. He tells his wife and children that he loves them and leaves the safe room to protect them in case the terrorists break into the house. Even across the door, Ohad continues to tell family members that he loves them. To his friends he texts “our last minutes.” Family members tensely wait for the terrorists to break in.

Several armed terrorists break into a Yahalomi family home and shoot at Ohad. Batsheva and the children hear him groaning in pain. The terrorists then leave the house.

The terrorists return to the house, open the safe room door and tell Batsheva and the children to come with them to Gaza. “Come Gaza,” they tell them. Batsheva is certain that the army is in the kibbutz and asks the children to call out for help. The terrorists lose patience and pull them out of the room at gunpoint. Ohad sits wounded next to the safe room and asks his wife to do what the terrorists say. Batsheva puts their 1 and 8-month-old daughter on Ohad, but one of the terrorists picks her up, and so they take the mother and three children from the house. Outside the house, the terrorists take pictures of them. Batsheva begs them to release the children and take only her.

One of the terrorists asks for Batsheva's car keys to drive with it to Gaza, but the Yahalomi family's vehicle, like the other vehicles next to them, bursts into flames. The terrorists bring two motorcycles. On one motorcycle, they pick up 12-year-old Ethan, with two terrorists behind him, one of them holding the baby girl. On the same motorcycle they also pick up a student from Africa who lives not far from the family who is handcuffed and injured. On the other motorcycle they seat Batsheva together with the middle daughter, Yael. Just before they start driving off, the baby girl begins to cry and the terrorist transfers her into Bathsheba's hands. They leave through the wide open kibbutz gate, around them a convoy of hundreds of terrorists taking with them more hostages and looted property.

As they are about 300 meters ahead of the border with Gaza, two IDF tanks emerge, speeding through the fields. The terrorists scatter everywhere and begin to flee. The motorcycle on which Batsheva and her children sit falls. The second motorcycle, on which Ethan is, continues to advance into the Gaza Strip. The armed terrorist driving the fallen motorcycle drags Batsheva and the girls at gunpoint into a container on the side of the road. One of the tanks passes close to them and Batsheva manages to escape it with the little girls. She starts to run steadily through the fields, with one arm she holds the baby girl and the other hand pulls Yael.

Barefoot and dressed in pajamas, Bathsheva and the girls make their escape journey back to Nir Oz. Bathsheva decides to stay away from the road on which the large convoy of terrorists went. At some point they get tired, lie on the ground and make themselves dead. The mother covers them with the blanket with which the terrorists covered her when they kidnapped her. From time to time she raises her head to see if the stream of terrorists has stopped, but it goes on for a long time.

Wounded and full of blood, the terrorists also kidnap Ohad to Gaza.

Batsheva and the girls again manage to hide and evade terrorists in the open fields. At one point, they are caught by two terrorists who try to get them to come with them to Gaza: “Come with us to Gaza, there is nothing to go to Nir Oz for, everything there is burned and they're shooting there.” Batsheva notices that they are unarmed and refuses to come with them. She manages to get away from them with the girls.

After about three hours in the bare ground, Batsheva and the girls arrive at the northern side of the kibbutz. When Batsheva arrives with the girls to the area of the Nirlat paint factory, a bus passes with soldiers who collect them and evacuate them from the kibbutz. From the bus, Batsheva calls Ohad's sister and tells her that she thinks Ohad is dead and that they will probably find him at the entrance to the safe room.

After fighters have scanned their home in Nir Oz, Batsheva is informed that Ohad is not there, at which point he is defined as missing. She spends the night with her daughters at her family's in Raanana.