When Amir Tibon first visited Nahal Oz on the Gaza border, he described the kibbutz as a “ghost town”. He was in the area to report on the conflict between Israel and Hamas in 2014.
Nahal Oz is officially the closest Israeli community to Gaza with agricultural lands that literally touch the border. When a rocket is fired, residents have only seven seconds to reach a shelter. And unlike most of Israel, it is not protected by the Iron Dome.
Yet despite all of this, Tibon and his wife, Miri, made the kibbutz their home.
In 2015, Tibon, a journalist, shared a phrase to describe living in the tranquil kibbutz surrounded by rockets and gunfire. “Nahal Oz, I tell people, is like heaven. It just happens to be right on the verge of hell,” he wrote for the Times of Israel.
In the same article, Tibon recalled trying to figure out how people would know who “won” the 2014 war. He said that if people left the border communities like Nahal Oz empty after the war, Hamas could declare victory. “The people in Gaza will still live in rubble, but Hamas will tell them that their suffering paid off, because for the first time since Israel’s creation, Israelis have been pushed away from places that are within the 1948 borders. They will be able to tell their people — we’ve set a precedent.”
And so, it seems that history is repeating itself.
While the kibbutz is a beautiful place, filled with wonderful memories for Tibon’s family, it is also the place where they hid in their safe room – his daughters’ bedroom – for hours on October 7.
In an incredible story of bravery, determination and undeniable love, Tibon and his family were rescued by his father.
Tibon’s story has been shared before.
In the immediate aftermath of the massacre, Tibon wrote of his family’s rescue. That his parents jumped in their car as soon as they received his message and made their way south. That along the way not only did they encounter survivors – who they piled into their jeep to get them out of harm’s way – but that his father also encountered terrorists. But it has never been shared in such detail as it is in The Gates of Gaza, a story of betrayal, survival, and hope in Israel’s borderlands.
Tibon paints a dire picture in The Gates of Gaza.
One where the community had been failed by various procedures and weapon requirements. He says the kibbutz security team were pretty much disarmed before Hamas even crossed through the gates. A picture of panic yet the need for calm, especially for their two little daughters who huddled alongside them. A picture of uncertainty – who was outside, who was alive, who was dead. Who was coming to save them?
“I told myself that if I was asking these two little girls to have faith in their parents, then I should also have faith in mine and believe that they are coming to help us.”
Never in his wildest dreams did he believe his parents would come running.
“I called my parents to inform them of the situation and hoped that maybe my father could speak to former military contacts of his and hasten the arrival of troops to the kibbutz,” Tibon told The AJN. “I didn’t imagine my parents would simply get in their car and drive toward the border area, which is what ended up happening. And I never imagined they would do things like rescuing survivors of the Nova festival massacre and treat injured soldiers along the way.”
When his parents told Tibon that they were coming, it was faith that kept him calm.
“My wife and I were asking our two young daughters – the older one 3.5 years old, and the little one just two years old – to trust us and remain silent in the dark room while terrorists were firing into our living room and shouting outside our window. And I told myself that if I was asking these two little girls to have faith in their parents, then I should also have faith in mine and believe that they are coming to help us.”
Tibon described the moments when he heard the first round of gunfire and Arabic outside, questioning how something like this could happen, especially with all the security and intelligence.
“We always knew there were risks associated with our family’s choice to move to Nahal Oz and set our home there,” he said. “But we never imagined a scenario in which Hamas basically takes over the community. And when we heard the gunshots inside our home, we knew this is what was happening.”
The family waited 10 hours in their safe room. There was no electricity, no food, very limited water and no access to a bathroom. Their mobile phones had patchy reception and eventually the batteries died. Tibon writes in The Gates of Gaza that his only source of light was his daughter’s “glow-in-the-dark pacifiers”.
To keep their girls calm, Tibon and Miri made a promise. Saba would come to save them, but only if they were quiet.
It was when they heard a different kind of gunfire that their hopes started to pick up.
It was his daughter who announced their saviour, “Saba is here”.
Still though, Tibon said it took him a few moments to move.
“I didn’t imagine my parents would simply get in their car and drive toward the border area, which is what ended up happening. And I never imagined they would do things like rescuing survivors of the Nova festival massacre and treat injured soldiers along the way.”
“I was laser-focused on what I had to do at that moment, which was to open for the first time after ten hours the door of our safe room and then walk over to the door of the house, unlock it and let in the soldiers and my father,” he told The AJN. “We hugged for a few seconds but then he went to see the girls in the safe room, and I went to the kitchen to get out snacks and water to the soldiers, who had been out fighting for hours, had already scanned more than twenty homes in our community, and had not had anything to eat since the previous night. So, there was very little time to process my emotions as it all happened. That part came only later.”
Tibon explained that it took until the first hostage release deal for him to start the writing process.
When five women and girls from Nahal Oz were returned in November, Tibon said he could finally breathe. Until then, the thought to write their story never entered his mind.
“Once we got them back, and while we continued to fight for the return of our two remaining hostages – Tzachi Idan and Omri Miran – I realised that I had to write about this historic period and preserve the memory of what happened. There are people all over the world who are trying to minimise the magnitude of the October 7 attack, or worse, to justify it. I felt it was important to tell the story and also provide historical context in order to keep the memory alive and let the facts speak for themselves,” he said.
Tibon has weaved the Kibbutz’s origin story, interviews with residents and soldiers, and experts on the conflict, throughout Nahal Oz’s October 7 story. He said the background has a crucial part to play in understanding what actually happened on that day, explaining that while there was already a tiny miltary base – “really just a handful of sheds” – on the site of what is now Nahal Oz, orders came direct from Moshe Dayan that in order to protect the border, there had to be civilian life, especially agriculture.
In October 1953, about 60 soldiers just nineteen years old were tasked with starting a new Kibbutz. They chose the name Nahal Oz – Nahal from their unit and Oz to signify strength.
“Nahal Oz, my community, wasn’t born on October 7, and this is true of all the Israeli communities that were attacked on that awful day. It has a long, fascinating history that goes back decades and sheds light on important aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I knew that if I wanted to truly inform the readers about October 7, I had to tell the wider history that preceded it and, in some ways, led to it. Otherwise, you’re only getting part of the story. In the process of conducting research for the historical chapters, I learned many new details that also influenced the way I wrote the October 7 chapters.”
Tibon said he hopes to return to Nahal Oz to live. He still visits the kibbutz around once a week for various reasons.
“My first visits back were in order to go to the community archive and collect materials about the history of Nahal Oz,” he told The AJN. “It was strange to visit the kibbutz, which was all abandoned, and go over historical documents while mortars were falling around me. I hope and plan to return, but not at all costs – we need to have a functioning and responsible government that can provide security to the citizens of this country.”
When asked what a better future looks like for his daughters, Tibon said a big part of that is returning, but things need to be fixed.
“Returning home to Nahal Oz and fixing all that needs to be fixed in our beloved State of Israel, so that it will be a strong, secure, prosperous and democratic country for the next generations.”
The Gates of Gaza is published by Scribe, $36.99 rrp
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