Keith Siegel says the October 7 attack still follows him home. The former hostage, who spent 484 days in Hamas captivity in Gaza, said in Tel Aviv: “I’m living a kind of dual life.”
Siegel and Aviva Siegel were among 251 people taken captive to Gaza on 7 October 2023. He said: “I’m here for some of the time, and I’m in Gaza some of time. It’s very challenging to convey in words what it was like.”
Nir Oz and the dead
The trauma extends beyond captivity. At Nir Oz, the cemetery holds two lines of fresh headstones, and a shared plot for a family of five has been turned into a garden with space left for their still-living grandparents.
Shlomo Margalit, who will soon turn 89, points to the graves of three of his oldest friends at Nir Oz. “This is my life project, as well as my home,” he said, adding: “I want people to know what really happened here.”
What happened at Nir Oz
Hamas militants crossed the border on 7 October 2023 to attack kibbutzim, border towns, military bases and music festivals. Israel's security forces were caught by surprise. By the time Israel regained control of the area, 1,209 people had been killed, the majority of them civilians, including 36 children, according to records kept by Haaretz.
At Nir Oz, a five-person volunteer defence force held Hamas at bay for at least two hours. After the volunteers were shot, Nir Oz was taken over and sacked. Homes were burned, families were slaughtered and kidnapped, and before the first Israeli soldier arrived, Hamas forces, other Palestinian gunmen and civilian looters had left.
Israel and the election season
Nir Oz had 47 people killed and 76 taken to Gaza. Shiri Bibas, her 10-month-old baby Kfir and four-year-old Ariel were taken from Nir Oz and later killed in Gaza. The dead and hostages from Nir Oz represented more than a quarter of the small community.
The third anniversary falls a few weeks before national elections, but survivors and bereaved relatives are avoiding the political fray. For readers trying to understand what has changed after three years, the clearest answer is in the scale of the loss: one community counting graves, another counting the days until hostages come home, and former captives like Siegel still living with both places at once.
