Fifty-two IDF soldiers, including 15 lookouts, died at the Nahal Oz outpost on the morning of October 7 in one of the first and harshest battles fought that day.
The lookouts saw everything and reported everything. They warned and courageously directed forces. Reinforcements showed up only after several, long hours and there was no one to rescue them. Seven were kidnapped by terrorists to Gaza and one has been murdered in captivity. Only two survived the inferno. This is the story of Maya Desiatnik, the only lookout to survive that inferno.
“On October 6, a few hours before the massacre, we were having a discharge party for the late Staff Sgt. Shachaf Nesani. She called the party “The Last Disco” and hung up decorations around the sign reading “Nahal Oz is Home.” It’s so sad to think about it. At the time, there were lots of disturbances in the sector, and that weekend in particular was quiet. We ate together, laughed and sang. We didn’t want the evening to end.”
"I got up at 3:30 a.m. for a war room shift. The rockets started at around 6:30 a.m.. The siren in the war room was incessant and we saw people running to the fence, a huge pickup truck crossing the fence. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. We declared an infiltration, and we gradually started saying invasion. It was scary just saying it out loud.”
“We’d never drilled directing the soldiers in a scenario on this scale. There was just one force in the field and one on base. In my sector, there were already several infiltration points. My friend, the late Sgt. Yael Leibushor, who was sitting next to me, saw dozens of terrorists on their way to us and Kibbutz Nahal Oz. The commanders started huddling around her counting the terrorists on their way to the outpost. They saw them turn and go in and saw the battle at the outpost gate. I didn’t watch. I couldn’t.”
“We were scared, but we knew the only thing we could do was function. I didn’t think of myself at that moment. I told myself that I was serving in a position.”
“About a quarter of an hour later, the terrorists got past the gate and got into the outpost and we watched them go to the war room. We were told to hide in the office of our officer, the late Capt. Shir Eilat. We sat there one on top of the other. There was no space. One girl would straighten her legs, then one would crouch down. We managed to stay in contact with our friends in the shelter, until around 7:30 a.m. when they stopped responding. At the time, we thought reception was down.”
Maya and her friends hid for six hours straight in the office in the war room, as the heroic battle was raging around them, fighting to the last bullet. Fifty-two soldiers fell at Nahal Oz that morning.
“I remember at some stage, the language changed from ‘We need reinforcement’ to ‘We need rescuing.’ We could hear terrorists talking, going up to the war room roof, shouting ‘Allahu Akbar.’ They shot at the war room from outside and threw grenades in. When they realized they couldn’t get in, they set it on fire, with all of us inside.”
“Smoke came in and it was hard to breathe. We tried blocking the office entrance to stop the smoke from coming in, but it didn’t help. We started coughing and choking and everyone left. I remember trying, and being unable, to talk. I’d open my mouth, and I’d get smoke in my mouth.”
“I knew I had to carry on walking, I heard one of the officers shouting, ‘Get out through the bathroom window.' I fell several times on the way. My eyes were burning up and I told myself I had to force myself to open them to find the bathroom. When I made it there, the sink had been broken by whoever had used it before me to get out. I just legged up and jumped from the window.”
“I got out, sat down and waited. One soldier came out of the other window. He had been severely affected by the smoke. My throat was burning up too. There was gunfire, sirens and no one around. Where were the girls?”
“We moved 40 minutes later to hide somewhere else – between the bushes and the concrete barricade blocks. We spent almost two hours there until the paratroopers came to rescue us.”
A birthday celebration at the Nahal Oz outpost a day before the massacre
Seven people were rescued from the burning war room. Maya was the only lookout. At the Nahal Oz outpost, 15 lookouts were murdered on October 7, and seven were kidnapped. The late lookout, Noa Marciano, was murdered in Hamas captivity and Ori Magidish was rescued from Gaza by IDF forces. Five lookouts are still in captivity: Agam Berger, Daniella Gilboa, Liri Albag, Naama Levy and Karina Ariev.
“I do think 'why me,' and whether it could have ended differently. When I got out of there, I still held onto the hope that they might have somehow escaped, and that I hadn’t seen them. As for the girls in the shelter, I just couldn’t believe they’d hurt them like that in their pajamas, unarmed. Whenever I’d hear about another girl, my hope would burst a little more. On the day they told me about the late Sgt. Roni Eshel, my hope was completely shattered. Roni was the last one listed as missing.“
“I’m beginning to rehabilitate, but it’s hard. I had plans. After my discharge in August, I was going to go to Sinai or Eilat with the girls – whatever we’d decide. But there’s no way I’m going without them. I try to find some kind of routine, but it’s hard. It’s especially hard when they’re still there. I know that, in the meantime, I can recover 75%-80% tops, but I can only make up those last points when they come back, only when they all come back.”
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