ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 652

Adi Gabay (Dafna Talmon)
Adi Gabay (Dafna Talmon)

'I want to raise my head and look forward. I don't see myself not going back to the kibbutz. As far as I'm concerned that is part of Amit's last will'

Adi Gabay, married mother of three, who works for the Eshkol Regional Council, evacuated to Tel Aviv ● Amit, her eldest son, was murdered on October 7 ● This is her story

This is part of a series, “Uprooted.” Each column is a curated monologue from an individual among the tens of thousands of internally displaced Israelis during the war with Hamas who were evacuated from the country’s northern border and the Gaza envelope.

Saturday, October 7

6:30 a.m.

My husband Noam and I woke to the sound of sirens and explosions and ran to our bomb shelter together with our 15-year-old daughter Ofri and 6-year-old son Omer. About two weeks before, between the holidays of Yom Kippur and Sukkot, Omer had moved to our 17-year-old son Amit’s room after Amit got a new room in the youth neighborhood.

When she heard the sirens, Ofri immediately said, “Well, there goes Bruno Mars,” who was scheduled to give a concert later that day. I said to her, “Just wait. It’s only 6:30 now and this can end in five minutes.” In those five minutes, I saw on the RedAlert app that rockets were also being fired at the Tel Aviv area and I said to her, “Okay, maybe Bruno Mars is out,” and we smiled at each other. I then wrote to Amit, “Did you close the window in the bomb shelter? Did you hear the red alert?” and he responded, “Yes, Mom, everything is okay.”

Anytime the security situation would deteriorate before, Amit would get worried and go to friends in Tze’elim or Gvulot, which are kibbutzim farther away from the border. I wrote to him, “If you want, Dad can drive you when it calms down a bit,” and he responded, “No, Mom. Nonsense. It will be over soon and I’ll go back to sleep and come over for breakfast. Please make challah.”

6:45 a.m.

We started to hear muffled gunshots, but I didn’t realize that they were gunshots. Noam is a member of the Re’im emergency response team, and questions began to be asked on the WhatsApp group. A few minutes later, the head of security called everyone up. I wrote to Amit, “Dad was called up. They think there’s a terrorist infiltration.” He asked if there was anything he needed to know and I said that if there was, I would update him.

Adi Gabay. (Dafna Talmon)

Omer, who had been quiet until that moment, asked why Dad was taking a gun and a helmet because they couldn’t protect him from rockets. I responded that Dad left because there might be people who weren’t supposed to be here in the kibbutz.

7:00 a.m.

We heard gunfire close by. I didn’t think it was in the kibbutz. I wrote to Amit, “Lock the door to the room and close the bomb shelter door and iron window properly. There are terrorists in the area.” I got the information from Noam, who came in and out of the house, and from the Eshkol Regional Council’s local security team’s WhatsApp group which I’m a member of because of my job in the council.

I began to understand that this was a significant event, but I didn’t dare say anything to anyone. Not to Noam, not to my friends, no one. I read messages sent by friends from other towns in the council. People wrote that terrorists had come into their houses, and I dissociated. I was seeing and scrolling but not understanding.

8:10 a.m.

I wrote to Amit, “How’s it going?” and he responded, “Mom, what do we do?” I answered, “There’s not much we can do other than be quiet and wait…” Ever since then I’ve been beating myself up. I didn’t tell him to hold the door. I didn’t understand that there were terrorists in the kibbutz.

Adi Gabay and her son Amit on a family trip. (Courtesy Adi Gabay)

8:20 a.m.

“Amit, what’s up with you?” No response. I saw he was last online at 8:17.

8:30 a.m.

Noam came home. I told him Amit wasn’t answering. He said, “Adi, this is far bigger than us. I don’t know how we will survive this. I saw dozens of terrorists in the kibbutz. There are only eight of us and dozens of them. I’m scared to go back out.” And he left again.

I tried and failed again to get hold of Amit and heard heavy gunfire nearby. The youth neighborhood is far from us. I messaged him again, but he didn’t answer. I called Noam and told him that Amit wasn’t answering, and he said, “I’ll be right there.”

A few minutes later he came in very pale and said, “Adi, I killed a terrorist.” I said, “Amit isn’t answering.” He told me about his encounter with a terrorist cell by the fence. Noam shot one of them and the rest escaped.

The destruction caused by Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Re’im on October 7, 2023, near the Israeli-Gaza border, November 26, 2023. (Yossi Zamir/Flash90)

8:35 a.m.

Reut Karp wrote in the kibbutz group, “Dvir [Karp] was murdered, someone needs to go to the kids.” I thought, “There’s no way someone was murdered like that in their home. Surely the army is here.” I dismissed it as if someone would tell us soon that he was only injured.

And then I started to get an awful stomachache. I went to the bathroom. Noam was on the roof, and I told the kids, “Dad is on the roof protecting us. Come to the bathroom.” That was the last time we went until the next day.

We sat for hours in the bomb shelter and didn’t drink or eat. Even in the evening, when Noam came in and brought Omer a snack, he didn’t eat a morsel. From time to time, I gave him a few sips of water even though he said he wasn’t thirsty.

Afternoon

Noam came home scratched and bleeding. I asked him what happened and he said he had been in a serious battle near the youth neighborhood and grenades were thrown at them. His gun was hit and his emergency response team partner was almost hit by a bullet.

Dvir Karp and Stav Kimhi (Courtesy)

He told me about Inbar who lived next to Amit’s room and was rescued through the window. Noam asked him if he knew what was happening in Amit’s bedroom, and Inbar said there were a lot of explosions around the house. Noam understood that something bad had happened, hoped for a miracle, and told me nothing.

I asked him about Amit and told him to go get him, and he said he couldn’t walk around without a weapon. I wrote to Ron Asaf, another emergency response team member, “I understand you’re by the youth neighborhood,” and he responded that he couldn’t get there, that the army was there, and he promised to update me.

All day, I followed Be’eri’s local security team head Racheli Benakot’s messages. She recorded messages and asked for them to be sent to the army. I knew that her brother, Arik Kraunik, was the head of the emergency response team in Be’eri and I thought that if she could continue to lead the kibbutz in that situation, I couldn’t say a word.

9:00 p.m.

The media reported that Kibbutz Re’im was cleared of terrorists. My brother, Itay, called and I didn’t answer. I wrote to him, “You know I cannot answer,” and he wrote, “But they said in the news that it was over.” I told him we were still in the bomb shelter and we were still fighting in the kibbutz.

Adi Gabay. (Dafnat Talmon)

10:00 p.m.

The Eshkol local security team announced that we could leave our bomb shelters. I wouldn’t allow the kids to leave, and it was good that I didn’t because a few moments later, they announced that there were more terrorists, and we had to go back to the bomb shelters and turn off the lights and air conditioning.

And then a message came through that they were going to blow up one of the houses in the youth neighborhood because a terrorist was hiding out there. I was hysterical and couldn’t breathe. I told Noam, “Amit is in his room! You need to stop them!” Every time I tell the story, I feel awful that I didn’t go out and run to get him.

Night

I messaged Ron, “Please don’t let them blow up Amit’s room.” At some point, he replied, “Please make Noam stay home with you.” I wrote to Ilan, the head of the local security team, that I knew something bad was happening, that Inbar had told Noam terrorists were hiding in his room, and I begged him to check if Amit was there. He wrote back saying that he needed to know the room number.

Noam got an aerial map of the youth neighborhood and I sent a photo to Ilan. We heard the booms of a tank shooting in the kibbutz, and then they told us that they had shot at Roi Mizrahi’s room in the youth neighborhood. The whole house burned up and he was pulled out alive.

The hours passed. Terrorists who escaped the youth neighborhood had gone into the Tuvya family’s home next to us. The parents managed to keep the door closed and the family survived.

Amit Gabay, murdered in Kibbutz Re’im on October 7, 2023. (Courtesy Adi Gabay)

Sunday, October 8

2:00 a.m.

Noam fell asleep and woke up, and Ofri and Omer slept on and off. I couldn’t sleep. I was glued to Noam’s phone to see what happened to the emergency response team. I waited for someone to find Amit.

Every now and then, I wrote in the kibbutz group, “Does anyone know what is happening in the youth neighborhood?” Every time I was answered with another name of someone who had been found safe and sound. At some point, we were told that Liam Or was taken hostage. The remaining boys were Asaf Faber and Amit.

7:30 a.m.

We got a message saying that an evacuation was being arranged. We were asked to prepare bags and provide an update on who wanted to leave in their car and who by bus. For the first time, I broke.

I called Sharon, my best friend from the kibbutz who is like my sister, and I told her, “I’m not leaving here without Amit.” I started to cry and she cried with me and then said, “Now get up, wipe away your tears, pack a bag for three days, and we’ll go by Amit’s room to pick him up and go.”

The remains of Amit Gabay’s apartment in Kibbutz Re’im after he was murdered by terrorists on October 7, 2023. (Courtesy Adi Gabay)

I hung up and told Ofri, “Pack clothes for three days, we’re going on a trip,” then I heard Ron shouting “Gabay” from outside. I thought they had finally found Amit.

I ran to the door, opened it, and saw Noam Mark, the kibbutz spokesman, and I understood everything. I sat on the floor and said, “You don’t need to say anything.”

I couldn’t function for hours from that moment. Noam came to hug me and hear what they knew. I went to tell Omer and Ofri that Amit was murdered. They were still in the bomb shelter and didn’t want to come out.

Amit

Amit was a “people” boy until his final day. He was a boy who loved routine but always stopped to say hello and good morning to friends he met on the road. He was a smiley and opinionated boy, sometimes stubborn, and you could always have deep conversations with him.

He was a boy full of general knowledge, investigative, curious, and active with the working youth. He was a boy who lived and breathed music, especially rap, and he would improvise words. He was a boy for whom his friends came first, even before us. He was very loved.

Amit loved the kibbutz. His dream was to be a bar/bat mitzvah counselor. His last two years had been difficult, but he had been accepted to a volunteer year at Adama Farm in Ein HaShofet which he visited in August and felt was the right place for him. He did valuable and educational work there and I am proud of him.

Amit, Oshri, and Omer Gabay in family photos. (Courtesy Adi Gabay)

I only understood how many friend groups he was connected to during the shiva, the ritual week of mourning. If there is one thing I like, it’s his relationship with his friends. When I meet them, I feel like I’m with him.

Amit and I had a lot of conversations. I was his driver. I was willing to drive him any time of the day. That was our quality time where he would share, talk, and consult me, and would also listen to my opinion.

In response to some questions for his yearbook, Amit wrote among other things, “My last words will be ‘bury me in the kibbutz.'” We fulfilled his wish.

Funeral and shiva

From Re’im, we drive to my parents in Nili (near Modi’in). Loads of friends came. Omer and Ofri couldn’t be by themselves and said they wanted to go to Eilat to join the community. I couldn’t think about it. We consulted with a psychologist, and she said, “Go.” It hurt to leave my grieving parents, but we left.

Suddenly, I saw my children blooming and understood that this was what we needed. We were embraced. To this day, we feel embraced. Sometimes I feel like we’re given precedence over other families in certain things.

But I want to be treated normally. I want my children to be equal. I don’t want them to feel like they’re being given something because they’re bereaved siblings. The loss will follow them either way. I don’t want the loss to be a crown on their heads. I want them to earn their own crowns.

A page from Amit Gabay’s yearbook where he writes that he dreams of visiting Colombia; would go to prison for driving; and his last words would be ‘bury me in the kibbutz.’ (Courtesy Adi Gabay)

We held the funeral in Sde Boker and drove from there to bury Amit in Re’im, exactly like he asked for. We sat shiva at my parents’ house and then returned to Eilat.

Two months in the hotel

Your living room is everyone’s living room. Your dining room is everyone’s dining room. When you want to say something to your child, other people around you think they can have their say. We regressed to the kibbutz of yesteryear. Everyone sleeps together. There is no private corner. And in all of this is your grief, which you close up inside you and smile even when it’s difficult. My smile protects me and my work.

The department I manage works on everything related to children and youth in the community, and that’s exactly what was needed. I wanted to go back to work. I remember Lilach who works with me visiting me before the funeral and saying, “Anything you need, I’m here.” I told her that when the shiva was over, I would start to come back, and she said, “Adi you can be calm.”

When I went back to work, I decided not to be on the front lines with all the communities but to still be involved. Then, Liat Cohen Raviv joined us for professional guidance, to reorganize, to rethink the essence of the department in wartime, and to figure out how to plant our activity in a scattered council when some of the towns were broken up.

And then there was talk of moving to two apartment buildings on Herzl Street in Tel Aviv. We were among those opposed because it didn’t make sense to me to move to a city in a 50 square meter (538 square foot) apartment, but the community decided to move and I didn’t see myself breaking away from them.

Adi Gabay. (Dafna Talmon)

The first day in Tel Aviv was a massive shock. The noise, the car horns, and the bicycles. We had to figure out how to set up the small apartment and where to put Omer’s toys. Everything was big. We didn’t have time to buy groceries to cook, and the house was full of boxes, so in the evening, we ordered pizza.

For the first time since October 7, we sat just the four of us around a table and ate. Our family unit was missing Amit, but finally, we could talk in peace and cook the food we like. Before we went to sleep, we told each other how lucky we were that we moved.

In the morning, we woke up task-oriented. We went shopping and started cooking. We did all this with a lump in our throats.

Home

This week, I made stir fry for the first time. It was Amit’s favorite meal. I cannot bring myself to cook the other dishes he liked like liver pate with onion jam and meat-filled tortillas. I don’t see myself making those for anyone.

I’m trying to stay optimistic. I’m always asked how I can smile and the answer is: I want my kids to be happy, and for them to be happy, I need to be okay. So I hold onto the gentle joys of life like going to a restaurant every now and then or going to see a show.

Twice a week I drive to Eshkol for work. Every time I get close to the familiar scenery, I get a nice feeling despite the pain, the longing, and the tears. Here, I don’t feel torn apart.

Construction on the corner of Rothschild Blvd and Herzl Street in Tel Aviv. June 05, 2023. (Miriam Alster/ FLASH90)

In Tel Aviv, I feel like an alien. I like Tel Aviv as a place to spend the night and then go back home, and when I say home, I mean Re’im.

Since Amit’s funeral, we have visited the kibbutz a few times. Every time I get there I feel like I want to stay.

On one of the visits, I went to Amit’s room in the youth neighborhood, and it was a big shock. The room was burnt to a crisp. A blackened closet and drawers were still standing in the bomb shelter and we were able to rescue a few things from there: a key chain, the speakers he had his whole life and which he took everywhere, and his controller computer he used when he learned how to DJ.

After three weeks in Tel Aviv, Omer was accepted into a nature school in the south of the city that admitted him with open arms. The afternoon hours were filled with activities managed by a kibbutz team that worked with the kids at the hotel.

Ofri began going to Tichon Hadash School in Tel Aviv and was blessed with a new team and new friendships, but now she’s having a hard time with the opening of an extension of Nofei HaBsor, Eshkol’s high school. Following the return of residents more than 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) away from the border, another school was opened in Kibbutz Gvulot. Ofri wants to go back, but we cannot.

Aren’t you scared to go back?

No. Maybe because I think that what happened won’t happen again. Maybe it’s because I think it’s a gorgeous place, Gaza will remain, and we’ll need to learn how to live there again and teach our kids to be independent and follow their dreams.

There is nothing good about what happened, but I want to raise my head and look forward. I don’t see myself not going back to the kibbutz. As far as I’m concerned, that’s part of Amit’s last will and testament.

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