Kibbutz Nir Oz: What happened in this house?
Israeli Channel 12 News just published a map of Nir Oz with red dots on every residence. You can click on any red dot to see what happened in that house on Oct 7th. Because all the text is in Hebrew, I have translated a random selection of dots as marked on a screenshot of the map. For those who can read Hebrew, you can click here to see the map online.
Screenshot of Channel 12 News map showing red dots for each residence. Description of what happened in numbered homes below. Arrow indicates a residence that was empty that day. Map by GISrael/Ofek Aerial Photography
Girls doing their National Service resided in the building marked with an arrow. None of them were on the kibbutz that day and the building was mostly burned.
The fates of those in the randomly selected numbered homes (some are adjoined units):
- Elderly man and his foreign caretaker – the elderly man was murdered and the caretaker abducted and later released in the hostage deal. The apartment was totally burned to the ground.
- Young man who was not at home that day
A visiting couple were murdered. They were friends of the young man whose home it was and he was not there that day. One of the couple was a former kibbutz member. The apartment was vandalized.
Young couple – both were abducted and the apartment vandalized.
Young man – abducted and the apartment vandalized - Elderly man, his partner and two visiting children – all were abducted and the apartment burned. (Two of his other children were abducted from another kibbutz in the region.)
Elderly couple – the man was abducted and his wife hid next to the bed and covered herself with a blanket. The apartment was vandalized. - Parents and their three children – hid in the shelter but the father and the son were abducted. The mother and two daughter continued to hide in the shelter and survived
Parents and two children – were not at the kibbutz that day - Parents and three children in one apartment hid in the shelter for hours. The father, who held the shelter door, was slightly injured when the terrorists shot through the door. When their home was set on fire, they escaped through the shelter window. They were joined by a mother and infant daughter from the adjoining home (father still missing) and all hid together in a mobile shelter. both apartments were burned down.
- Parents and four children – hid in the shelter and held the shelter door until they were rescued
- Parents and three children in one apartment hid in the shelter for hours together with neighbours from the adjoining apartment, a mother and daughter. They were later joined by an elder son, a soldier, who protected them with his weapon. Both homes were burned.
- Dormitory residence for Thai workers – 19 workers living in 11 rooms – 11 were murdered, 5 abducted and 3 were off the kibbutz that day.
You can read my interview with the granddaughter of the Metzger couple who were both abducted. I do not know which red dot shows their home.
Business Insider published a conversation with Itai Anghel, well known documentarian and war correspondant. Before journalists were allowed on the site, Anghel was smuggled into the kibbutz by residents coming to clean up who wanted raw documentation of what happened there, Anghel said:
Around a quarter of the people of Nir Oz were assassinated, kidnapped, or injured in a very severe way. Those who survived have no place to come back to.
