Itamar Dgani, a dairy farmer from Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, insisted on not evacuating from his kibbutz after Hamas’ attack on October 7 and the subsequent war, choosing to stay with his cows, even under missile fire.
That's not surprising given his family history: his grandfather was one of the kibbutz’s founders and was killed in the War of Independence in 1948 while defending it, just like on October 7 when Itamar and his son went out to guard the fences with the local alert squad in the same places his grandfather defended before him.
Itamar's son, Lieutenant Nevo Dgani, serves in the Nahal Brigade, where his father also served and fell during the Yom Kippur War. Nevo was seriously wounded in the fighting in Gaza; he is currently undergoing rehabilitation. Itamar's uncle, his mother's brother, was killed during the three-year Israeli–Egyptian War of Attrition.
"We don’t have the option to move," Dgani said in an interview with Ynet. "We were born in the kibbutz, we don't move when we're being shot at, not ever. We can't leave the cows here without food and water, without care and without attention. We may suffer more emotionally, but they are going through tough times too, we need to be here with them."
In the early morning hours of October 7, the kibbutz came under heavy rocket fire. "It so happened that my son was on leave," he recounted. "So I took him with me as part of the alert squad."
“We knew about the infiltration ahead of time thanks to another kibbutz that came under attack and so managed to grab weapons, patrol the kibbutz, check that the gates were closed and that’s when an intense battle took place here between IDF forces that happened to arrive here and the scoundrels from Gaza," he said.
His son Nevo was severely wounded in battle in northern Gaza's Daraj-Tuffah neighborhood in December, where Major Shay Shamriz and Captain (res.) Shaul Greenglick were killed.
"He was saved in the field where paramedics and doctors administered a chest tube, gave him blood transfusions and airlifted him to Rabin Medical Center," Itamar said.
"He was sedated and intubated for a week, and now we’re in a long process toward recovery and he's doing much better today. They managed to save his leg and lung thanks to the amazing doctors and teams at the hospital. He's home now, recovering."
While he's concerned for his son's well-being, Dgani is also troubled by the social rift in Israeli society. "We're four generations who have fought for this kibbutz we call home, yet sadly, it's still not enough for many who view us as traitors, as people who don't deserve what we have here, because we're from a kibbutz and perceived as privileged," he said.
"I had many conversations with people to explain to them that standing in the barn mucking out manure and working 24/7 for these cows isn’t a privilege; we're not really privileged. This country is still very, very important to us. When my three sons were born, I said, 'Oh, three soldiers for the State of Israel.' That's what we were taught at home, that's what my mother told me, that we would all be combat soldiers. And that's what we pass on to our sons,” he added.
According to him, most residents have already returned to the kibbutz. "There are families with children who can’t return due to a lack of educational frameworks, but we can say the place is bustling with life already, there’s a lot of noise from people and children. It really feels like it used to," he concluded.