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The Gates of Gaza: A Story of Betrayal, Survival, and Hope in Israel’s Borderlands
The gripping true story of how leading Israeli journalist Amir Tibon, along with his wife and their two young children, were rescued from Kibbutz Nahal Oz on October 7, 2023 by Tibon’s own father—an incredible tale of survival that also reveals the deep tensions and systemic failures that led to Hamas’s attacks that day.
On the morning of October 7, Amir Tibon and his wife were awakened by mortar rounds exploding near their home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, a progressive Israeli community less than a mile from Gaza City. Soon, they were holding their two young daughters in the family’s reinforced safe room, urging them not to cry as gunfire echoed just outside the door. With his cell phone battery running low, Amir texted his “The girls are behaving really well, but I’m worried they’ll lose patience soon and Hamas will hear us.”
Some 45 miles north, Amir’s parents had just cut short an early morning swim along the shores of Tel Aviv. Now, they jumped in their Jeep and sped toward Nahal Oz, armed only with a pistol but intent on saving their family at all costs.
In The Gates of Gaza, Amir Tibon tells this harrowing story in full for the first time. He describes his family's ordeal—and the bravery that ultimately led to their rescue—alongside the histories of the place they call home and the systems of power that have kept them and their neighbors in Gaza in harm’s way for decades.
Woven throughout is Tibon's own expertise as a longtime international correspondent, as well as more than thirty original with residents of his kibbutz, with the Israeli soldiers who helped to wrest it from the hands of Hamas, and with experts on Gaza, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the failed peace process. More than one family's odyssey, The Gates of Gaza is the intimate story of a tight-knit community and the broader saga of war, occupation, and hostility between two national movements—a conflict that has not yet extinguished the enduring hope for peace.
On the morning of October 7, Amir Tibon and his wife were awakened by mortar rounds exploding near their home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, a progressive Israeli community less than a mile from Gaza City. Soon, they were holding their two young daughters in the family’s reinforced safe room, urging them not to cry as gunfire echoed just outside the door. With his cell phone battery running low, Amir texted his “The girls are behaving really well, but I’m worried they’ll lose patience soon and Hamas will hear us.”
Some 45 miles north, Amir’s parents had just cut short an early morning swim along the shores of Tel Aviv. Now, they jumped in their Jeep and sped toward Nahal Oz, armed only with a pistol but intent on saving their family at all costs.
In The Gates of Gaza, Amir Tibon tells this harrowing story in full for the first time. He describes his family's ordeal—and the bravery that ultimately led to their rescue—alongside the histories of the place they call home and the systems of power that have kept them and their neighbors in Gaza in harm’s way for decades.
Woven throughout is Tibon's own expertise as a longtime international correspondent, as well as more than thirty original with residents of his kibbutz, with the Israeli soldiers who helped to wrest it from the hands of Hamas, and with experts on Gaza, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the failed peace process. More than one family's odyssey, The Gates of Gaza is the intimate story of a tight-knit community and the broader saga of war, occupation, and hostility between two national movements—a conflict that has not yet extinguished the enduring hope for peace.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2024
314 people are currently reading
2060 people want to read
About the author
Amir Tibon
3 books17 followersAmir Tibon (Hebrew: אמיר תיבון) is an Israeli journalist and writer.
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March 10, 2025
5.0
This book just won the National Jewish Book Council Award for the genre of Non Fiction 2025
You may have seen "part" of this story on all news broadcasts and video channels a few days after October 7th when Amir Tibon's father...........
The Gates of Gaza is not written simply as a biography, memoir of rescue; but rather; melds together a history and impact- from both sides of the war, including the unfortunate failure of a system to prevent the Hamas attack. Included as part of his personal story, "Tibon intersperses his personal account with chapters that tell the story generally. He traces the region’s history from its time as part of Egypt after the Independence Day War, to when it became Israel’s disputed territory after the Six-Day War, to today — when the strip is under blockade and conflagrations seem to break out every few years."
A very painful story all the way around; the author is accurate with documented history. It is very impressive to learn a little about the many other heroes in this book which Tibon rightly so, refused to leave out. Another added place where our heroes can be memorialized. Humility at its best.
Important to know is where the title of this book was taken from. The biblical story of" Samson, the Israelite warrior who was strong enough to lift the heavy gates of the ancient Philistine city of Gaza and carry them on his shoulders after the Philistines living there, foresworn enemies of ancient Israel, had tried to trap him inside the city".
Published Sept. 1st 2024 before the first of the hostage releases in October, many names might very well be familiar.
The show Fauda as I understand, is going to create a few episodes from the book for their show. I also saw that Leviathan Filmworks will be making a movie where Amir and his father are consultants.
Amir Tibon is an Israeli journalist for Haaretz as well as a writer and has worked as a diplomatic correspondent.
I believe that in his wildest dreams Amir never thought he would write a book such as this.
And for me; I wish this was a work of fiction.
This book just won the National Jewish Book Council Award for the genre of Non Fiction 2025
You may have seen "part" of this story on all news broadcasts and video channels a few days after October 7th when Amir Tibon's father...........
The Gates of Gaza is not written simply as a biography, memoir of rescue; but rather; melds together a history and impact- from both sides of the war, including the unfortunate failure of a system to prevent the Hamas attack. Included as part of his personal story, "Tibon intersperses his personal account with chapters that tell the story generally. He traces the region’s history from its time as part of Egypt after the Independence Day War, to when it became Israel’s disputed territory after the Six-Day War, to today — when the strip is under blockade and conflagrations seem to break out every few years."
A very painful story all the way around; the author is accurate with documented history. It is very impressive to learn a little about the many other heroes in this book which Tibon rightly so, refused to leave out. Another added place where our heroes can be memorialized. Humility at its best.
Important to know is where the title of this book was taken from. The biblical story of" Samson, the Israelite warrior who was strong enough to lift the heavy gates of the ancient Philistine city of Gaza and carry them on his shoulders after the Philistines living there, foresworn enemies of ancient Israel, had tried to trap him inside the city".
Published Sept. 1st 2024 before the first of the hostage releases in October, many names might very well be familiar.
The show Fauda as I understand, is going to create a few episodes from the book for their show. I also saw that Leviathan Filmworks will be making a movie where Amir and his father are consultants.
Amir Tibon is an Israeli journalist for Haaretz as well as a writer and has worked as a diplomatic correspondent.
I believe that in his wildest dreams Amir never thought he would write a book such as this.
And for me; I wish this was a work of fiction.
December 14, 2024
I listened to Amir Tibon narrate his own words on Audible, which gave an even greater sense of intimacy to his story.
Tibon, a journalist at the left-leaning Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, lived for several years on the kibbutz Nahal Oz, located less than five miles from Gaza City. He spent ten hours on October 7 locked in his saferoom with his wife and two young daughters under three years of age. Through tense prose, he described his and his wife, Miri’s, attempts to keep the girls quiet and calm while gunfire rang outside their homes and the news on their community What’s App became more and more desperate.
As a journalist, Tibon knows how to weave words together to draw people into the story, shunting seamlessly through his own experience and that of his neighbors, which he only came to understand later. His own father, a retired Israeli general, drove from Tel Aviv to rescue his family as the active IDF members scrambled for purchase against this attack for which they were not prepared. It is a haunting journey of terror and destruction.
To break up that pace, Tibon tells a truncated history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, with a focus on Israeli policy and Nahal Oz’s founding and development throughout the decades. Settled in 1951, the kibbutz was a socialist, leftist enterprise, and many residents were geared towards the idea of ultimate peace with Palestinian neighbors. When the kibbutz security officer, Ro’i Rothberg was killed by infiltrators from Gaza in 1956, Moshe Dayan, then Israel’s Chief of Staff, attended the funeral. He gave a eulogy in which he invoked “The Gates of Gaza,” which “weighed too heavily on [Ro’i’s] shoulders and killed him.” It is a complicated, controversial speech about the history of two peoples’ living in ebbing conflict with one another, which adds a layer of tension and contemplation to this book.
The “background” of the conflict could be a little disjointed for me, oscillating between more detached reportage and then pointed condemnation with Netanyahu’s rise to power. Tibon also made this part personal, regarding him and his more left-leaning neighbors reacting to Israeli politics in the years leading up to October 7. Ultimately, it’s a small quibble, and I remained engaged with the text throughout.
Tibon didn’t initially want to write this book, but I know I and my synagogue’s Israel Book Club are grateful that he did. :P He provides commendable insight and empathy into a situation where the lives of him and his family were directly impacted. He lost neighbors and loved ones to death and captivity. He lost his entire community, which was lovingly chronicled here. The book doesn’t touch much on the conflict post-October 7, but where it does, Tibon was candid about the horrors now inflicted on the innocents of Gaza. He bemoaned the lack of competent, empathetic leadership on both sides, which fits my own understanding of the conflict today.
As an American Jew who is relatively involved in her religious/cultural community, this is personal for me. October 7, 2023 was Simchat Torah, which bound all Jews further together. For more of an “outsider” opinion, I traveled to the Guardian review. Near the end, Rafael Behr wrote words that spoke to me most: “There is a readership that recognises the validity of conflicting perspectives; that doesn’t want complex events distilled into easy parables of moral righteousness. That audience, despairing of the way so much Middle East coverage is drained of historical context and nuance, will find some solace in The Gates of Gaza.”
Tibon, a journalist at the left-leaning Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, lived for several years on the kibbutz Nahal Oz, located less than five miles from Gaza City. He spent ten hours on October 7 locked in his saferoom with his wife and two young daughters under three years of age. Through tense prose, he described his and his wife, Miri’s, attempts to keep the girls quiet and calm while gunfire rang outside their homes and the news on their community What’s App became more and more desperate.
As a journalist, Tibon knows how to weave words together to draw people into the story, shunting seamlessly through his own experience and that of his neighbors, which he only came to understand later. His own father, a retired Israeli general, drove from Tel Aviv to rescue his family as the active IDF members scrambled for purchase against this attack for which they were not prepared. It is a haunting journey of terror and destruction.
To break up that pace, Tibon tells a truncated history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, with a focus on Israeli policy and Nahal Oz’s founding and development throughout the decades. Settled in 1951, the kibbutz was a socialist, leftist enterprise, and many residents were geared towards the idea of ultimate peace with Palestinian neighbors. When the kibbutz security officer, Ro’i Rothberg was killed by infiltrators from Gaza in 1956, Moshe Dayan, then Israel’s Chief of Staff, attended the funeral. He gave a eulogy in which he invoked “The Gates of Gaza,” which “weighed too heavily on [Ro’i’s] shoulders and killed him.” It is a complicated, controversial speech about the history of two peoples’ living in ebbing conflict with one another, which adds a layer of tension and contemplation to this book.
The “background” of the conflict could be a little disjointed for me, oscillating between more detached reportage and then pointed condemnation with Netanyahu’s rise to power. Tibon also made this part personal, regarding him and his more left-leaning neighbors reacting to Israeli politics in the years leading up to October 7. Ultimately, it’s a small quibble, and I remained engaged with the text throughout.
Tibon didn’t initially want to write this book, but I know I and my synagogue’s Israel Book Club are grateful that he did. :P He provides commendable insight and empathy into a situation where the lives of him and his family were directly impacted. He lost neighbors and loved ones to death and captivity. He lost his entire community, which was lovingly chronicled here. The book doesn’t touch much on the conflict post-October 7, but where it does, Tibon was candid about the horrors now inflicted on the innocents of Gaza. He bemoaned the lack of competent, empathetic leadership on both sides, which fits my own understanding of the conflict today.
As an American Jew who is relatively involved in her religious/cultural community, this is personal for me. October 7, 2023 was Simchat Torah, which bound all Jews further together. For more of an “outsider” opinion, I traveled to the Guardian review. Near the end, Rafael Behr wrote words that spoke to me most: “There is a readership that recognises the validity of conflicting perspectives; that doesn’t want complex events distilled into easy parables of moral righteousness. That audience, despairing of the way so much Middle East coverage is drained of historical context and nuance, will find some solace in The Gates of Gaza.”
Read
December 3, 2025Imagine that you're going about your regular Saturday morning routine. Maybe you're an early bird and have gone for a walk or run. Are brewing coffee. Enjoying a lovely cup of tea. Or maybe you're turning over in bed to have a lie in and get some more sleep.
Now imagine your world being completely turned upside down and inside out by an attack on your home. Your safe haven. Your community.
I’m sure everyone by now knows of the inhumane events which took place on October 07, 2023. I remember listening to what had occurred while listening to the radio on that same Saturday morning. I couldn’t understand or make sense of what the newsflash was saying. No-one could have ever imagined that such horror and brutality could take place. After September 11 it’s unmistakable to think that another cruelly barbaric event could take place against innocent civilians going about their lives.
Amir Tibon is an Israeli journalist who moved with his wife to a kibbutz that bordered alongside Gaza. This may sound crazy to live somewhere outside the safety of the “iron dome”, but his dream was to raise his young family out of the city and in the countryside. Surrounded by fields, nature, animals. Yet this is exactly what kibbutzim offered to people. A chance to live in a small community where neighbours became family, all working together toward common goals. It’s a beautiful thing to want to achieve.
So imagine his horror that Saturday morning when he heard the sounds of mortars being fired and fled with his wife and young daughters to the safe room of their home. Dozens of dozens of text and WhatsApp messages being furiously sent between people as no-one had a clue of what was going on.
I know I’ve used the word horror several times, but there really are no other words to describe what happened that day, and the aftermath which has continued til today.
This is an intelligently written memoir as via alternating chapters I learnt of Israel’s history and the complexity of their political system, and how dirty politics is. The duplicity. Of the friends and family who lived in the same kibbutz, their stories, hopes and dreams. Some were killed outright, some were kidnapped and taken hostage into Gaza. You’ll be reading about the horror of that day, followed by page after page of happy events that had taken place previously, the celebrations, the weddings, the love.
I actually had to pause half way through and left it for some time as it was all too much to take in.
The world is a complex place and wars are brutal. There are no winners.
I’ve not added a star rating as how can I possibly allocate one for the nightmare that people suffered through? Just know that if you have an open mind this is most definitely worthwhile reading. The world is too divided and divisive and we really need to learn from history, but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the case.
Here are some words to ponder on:
”There are no leaders in the land these days - not on the Israeli side or on the Palestinian one. In their place are psychopaths and egomaniacs, some of whom dream of endless war and annihilating the other side, whatever the cost; others are simply too weak and feckless to stand up to those who have dragged all of us into this nightmare.”
Now imagine your world being completely turned upside down and inside out by an attack on your home. Your safe haven. Your community.
I’m sure everyone by now knows of the inhumane events which took place on October 07, 2023. I remember listening to what had occurred while listening to the radio on that same Saturday morning. I couldn’t understand or make sense of what the newsflash was saying. No-one could have ever imagined that such horror and brutality could take place. After September 11 it’s unmistakable to think that another cruelly barbaric event could take place against innocent civilians going about their lives.
Amir Tibon is an Israeli journalist who moved with his wife to a kibbutz that bordered alongside Gaza. This may sound crazy to live somewhere outside the safety of the “iron dome”, but his dream was to raise his young family out of the city and in the countryside. Surrounded by fields, nature, animals. Yet this is exactly what kibbutzim offered to people. A chance to live in a small community where neighbours became family, all working together toward common goals. It’s a beautiful thing to want to achieve.
So imagine his horror that Saturday morning when he heard the sounds of mortars being fired and fled with his wife and young daughters to the safe room of their home. Dozens of dozens of text and WhatsApp messages being furiously sent between people as no-one had a clue of what was going on.
I know I’ve used the word horror several times, but there really are no other words to describe what happened that day, and the aftermath which has continued til today.
This is an intelligently written memoir as via alternating chapters I learnt of Israel’s history and the complexity of their political system, and how dirty politics is. The duplicity. Of the friends and family who lived in the same kibbutz, their stories, hopes and dreams. Some were killed outright, some were kidnapped and taken hostage into Gaza. You’ll be reading about the horror of that day, followed by page after page of happy events that had taken place previously, the celebrations, the weddings, the love.
I actually had to pause half way through and left it for some time as it was all too much to take in.
The world is a complex place and wars are brutal. There are no winners.
I’ve not added a star rating as how can I possibly allocate one for the nightmare that people suffered through? Just know that if you have an open mind this is most definitely worthwhile reading. The world is too divided and divisive and we really need to learn from history, but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the case.
Here are some words to ponder on:
”There are no leaders in the land these days - not on the Israeli side or on the Palestinian one. In their place are psychopaths and egomaniacs, some of whom dream of endless war and annihilating the other side, whatever the cost; others are simply too weak and feckless to stand up to those who have dragged all of us into this nightmare.”
November 6, 2025
On 7 October 2023, the author and his family were residing in the peaceful settlement of Kibbutz Nahal Oz when the settlement was attacked in force by Hamas terrorists from nearby Gaza. Tibon didn't waste much time in getting a book out about the experience. This one is pretty good, and basically several story lines wrapped up in one package.
Part of this book is an account of how he and his wife and daughters sheltered in a safe room while terrorists ranged about the kibbutz murdering and kidnapping unarmed neighbours and engaging in combat with the very few lightly armed security forces. If I'm being honest here, I found the idea of a grown man hiding out with the women while his community is under attack to be a little cowardly, but then I remembered that the government had decreed that weapons couldn't be kept in the house, so I guess we can give him a pass on that. No 2nd Amendment in Israel; if there had been, a lot more terrorists would not have made it back to Gaza.
So, while Amir and family are hiding out, Amir's dad, a retired General, gets strapped and heads out to Nahal Oz to rescue his grandkids in his own vehicle. His wife comes along for the journey, and together they save a few folks and kill a few others. This was actually my favourite part of the book, Amir's dad and his big brass balls.
The narrative jumps around quite a bit. Tibon is very knowledgeable about the very complicated political situation in Gaza, and he explains how all this came to be. It's a very important part of the book but has the potential to be boring. I'm grateful that he interspersed the political stuff with accounts of the goings-on in Nahal Oz and details of his father's rescue mission.
So what you have in these pages amounts to the complete experience: a history lesson, a bit of combat, and a rescue mission all rolled into one. I feel that having read the book, I am much better informed about the situation in Gaza, and I'm convinced there can be no peace while Hamas exists. And a reminder: don't give up your guns.
Part of this book is an account of how he and his wife and daughters sheltered in a safe room while terrorists ranged about the kibbutz murdering and kidnapping unarmed neighbours and engaging in combat with the very few lightly armed security forces. If I'm being honest here, I found the idea of a grown man hiding out with the women while his community is under attack to be a little cowardly, but then I remembered that the government had decreed that weapons couldn't be kept in the house, so I guess we can give him a pass on that. No 2nd Amendment in Israel; if there had been, a lot more terrorists would not have made it back to Gaza.
So, while Amir and family are hiding out, Amir's dad, a retired General, gets strapped and heads out to Nahal Oz to rescue his grandkids in his own vehicle. His wife comes along for the journey, and together they save a few folks and kill a few others. This was actually my favourite part of the book, Amir's dad and his big brass balls.
The narrative jumps around quite a bit. Tibon is very knowledgeable about the very complicated political situation in Gaza, and he explains how all this came to be. It's a very important part of the book but has the potential to be boring. I'm grateful that he interspersed the political stuff with accounts of the goings-on in Nahal Oz and details of his father's rescue mission.
So what you have in these pages amounts to the complete experience: a history lesson, a bit of combat, and a rescue mission all rolled into one. I feel that having read the book, I am much better informed about the situation in Gaza, and I'm convinced there can be no peace while Hamas exists. And a reminder: don't give up your guns.
September 30, 2024
A must read account of October 7 at Nahal Oz
Amir Tibon found himself tragically caught up with the awful attacks of October 7 at his home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz. This book tells the story of that day for him and his family (he, a Haaretz journalist, his wife and two young kids, his father a retired general and his mom) and weaves the history of the community and Israeli Gazan relationship since the founding of the state. Tibon tells the story with humanity and compassion and moral clarity. He’s a deeply impressive human being. Anyone who wants to understand more about the current conflict should read.
Amir Tibon found himself tragically caught up with the awful attacks of October 7 at his home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz. This book tells the story of that day for him and his family (he, a Haaretz journalist, his wife and two young kids, his father a retired general and his mom) and weaves the history of the community and Israeli Gazan relationship since the founding of the state. Tibon tells the story with humanity and compassion and moral clarity. He’s a deeply impressive human being. Anyone who wants to understand more about the current conflict should read.
December 29, 2024
I saw Amir’s viral tweets in the days following October 7th. But I’m not sure I had time to digest it, and God knows it’s been a long year. Amir regrets not waiting a moment before sending his first tweet, and here is the full story with the space and context that it deserves. The chapters alternate between the narrative of what happened to him and his family over the course of that day, and the social and political history starting from the founding of Kibbutz Nahal Oz in the 50s.
What to say about Noam Tibon... He's exceptional but also recognizable to me as a type of Israeli: A certain unbound idealism. It's a particular moral clarity: Not just to act in the face of terror, but also to know how to perform moral triage. Of course, that includes not listening to the instructions (an Israeli specialty) and bypass checkpoints. But to simultaneously have the determination to save your grandchildren, and also to know when you need to turn around, when people in need are staring you in the face (or in one case, bleeding out), and to twice detour for their sake... I found it deeply emotional each time they turn around to bring someone out of harm's way, and each time they are ready to plunge back into the danger an Israeli with the Noam Tibon spirit hears them and says, yeah, "I'll come with you," (Avi p 95), "get in" (Yisrael, p 148). I have a half dozen of my own Noam Tibons: These are my cousins and my friends and my neighbors. That’s idealism that meets a pragmatism, whether that’s in the agricultural dream that draws people to the kibbutz in the first place or the frustration with the political landscape is an undercurrent. These Israelis play a role in resilience of my psyche, of my faith in the Zionist project generally.
Only once did I have to skip a history chapter because I was just too caught up in the suspense of the narrative. But those chapters are well done, too, Tibon shows us how the meaning of the Kibbutz changes depending on the political status of Gaza, and I was particularly intruiged by the idea that the border itself gives meaning to the Kibbutz, full of idealistic people who ultimately are looking for a two state solution. This local perspective is also central to the claim against Bibi.
Tibon pulls no punches and presents a cynical, distrustful picture of Bibi, which is summarized most concisely when arguing that Bibi's self-interest and self-preservation "had led Netanyahu to allow the Qatari cash payments to Hamas on the one hand and to legitimize the racist, violent Ben-Gvir on the other" (p230.) Other right leaders come out looking much more sane or human: Lieberman, at least, couldn't countenance the strategic implications of using, then increasing the Qatari cash payments to keep the border quiet (p243) and Bennet at least, has the heart to show up to shiva and take responsibility for what happened (p266). Bibi though... has nothing to show, except his long reign.
What is missing, perhaps the third thing, the strategy that might justify proping up Hamas, is normalization in the broader Middle East, and isolating Iran. Here is where legitimate credit can be given to the right: Bibi, and also Trump. The possibility of a beachead, where we were told that no progress was possible until we had a solution to the Palesitnian problem... was wrong: we had more to offer, they had other priorities. (This difference in scope [Israel v. Palestine? Or Israel v. the region?] mirrors a certain type of explainer for left v right, generally.) And that's where the frame of the book is also the politics of the book: it is, literally, "the Gates of Gaza," the closest Kibbutz to the border, the experience of the local. And so of course Tibon is telling you what it's about to be there, and that story doesn't have much to do with Iran, but a lot, a lot, to do with the people living not more than a mile away.
Which is the more improtant front? The lesson seems to reinforce itself every day. Just this week, a barrage of rockets from Iran killed zero, while a local terrorist killed 8 in a rampage in Tel Aviv. "In the last week in Israel one or two men with guns killed a lot more people than 180 ballistic missiles from Iran, a reminder of one major lesson of last October, that advanced technology is not enough to protect us." Lahav Harkov tweeted. Maybe I can put the lesson a little more starkly, though, I feel Lahav isn't really taking this to its conclusion: It's a reminder that eliminating the Iran threat isn't enough to protect us. Maybe there's a cold calculus that, whatever terrorists of Gaza can inflict, you'd bear it to avoid a single hit from a nuclear weapon, WMD, even to be helpless in a barage of missles. This logic can obviously twist, it's hard to even write. I don't like counterfactual histories. All I can say is that the accumulation of deaths, injuries, traumas, of my family and friends, feels pretty unbearable, even sitting here, sipping an ice coffee on the upper west side on an unseasonally warm October 7th.
I too, was fooled by Bibi's dream. I considered myself a pragmatist. Ultimately I looked around and didn’t see a peace partner, and if wait we must, then maybe we should at least get a move on where we can. But it's a form of opting out. (I was profoundly shaped by the 2005 disengagement when I was living in Israel, which is critiqued in a similar vain, p122.) Bibi thinks we can opt out of Gaza and that what happens there is of no consequence to the safety of the Israelis. There is a liberal version of opting out too that briefly peeps out: Amir himself considers leaving Israel at one point, frustrated with the political landscape. "... for the first time since we'd moved to Nahal Oz, Miri and I spoke about the possibility of leaving - the kibbutz, and perhaps even the country - for good." (p235) That's my emphasis, in italics, but I can't help but recognize the classic secularist out, it mirrors too what I hear from all my ex-colleagues as well, and the good but secular people who feel just a little bit too successful and humanistic and idealistic to have to deal with this messy reality. But guess what: There is no opting out, there is only diving in. That’s bravery, and that’s something I take with me from this book: From the project of Nachal Oz, and from Noam Tibon.
What to say about Noam Tibon... He's exceptional but also recognizable to me as a type of Israeli: A certain unbound idealism. It's a particular moral clarity: Not just to act in the face of terror, but also to know how to perform moral triage. Of course, that includes not listening to the instructions (an Israeli specialty) and bypass checkpoints. But to simultaneously have the determination to save your grandchildren, and also to know when you need to turn around, when people in need are staring you in the face (or in one case, bleeding out), and to twice detour for their sake... I found it deeply emotional each time they turn around to bring someone out of harm's way, and each time they are ready to plunge back into the danger an Israeli with the Noam Tibon spirit hears them and says, yeah, "I'll come with you," (Avi p 95), "get in" (Yisrael, p 148). I have a half dozen of my own Noam Tibons: These are my cousins and my friends and my neighbors. That’s idealism that meets a pragmatism, whether that’s in the agricultural dream that draws people to the kibbutz in the first place or the frustration with the political landscape is an undercurrent. These Israelis play a role in resilience of my psyche, of my faith in the Zionist project generally.
Only once did I have to skip a history chapter because I was just too caught up in the suspense of the narrative. But those chapters are well done, too, Tibon shows us how the meaning of the Kibbutz changes depending on the political status of Gaza, and I was particularly intruiged by the idea that the border itself gives meaning to the Kibbutz, full of idealistic people who ultimately are looking for a two state solution. This local perspective is also central to the claim against Bibi.
Tibon pulls no punches and presents a cynical, distrustful picture of Bibi, which is summarized most concisely when arguing that Bibi's self-interest and self-preservation "had led Netanyahu to allow the Qatari cash payments to Hamas on the one hand and to legitimize the racist, violent Ben-Gvir on the other" (p230.) Other right leaders come out looking much more sane or human: Lieberman, at least, couldn't countenance the strategic implications of using, then increasing the Qatari cash payments to keep the border quiet (p243) and Bennet at least, has the heart to show up to shiva and take responsibility for what happened (p266). Bibi though... has nothing to show, except his long reign.
What is missing, perhaps the third thing, the strategy that might justify proping up Hamas, is normalization in the broader Middle East, and isolating Iran. Here is where legitimate credit can be given to the right: Bibi, and also Trump. The possibility of a beachead, where we were told that no progress was possible until we had a solution to the Palesitnian problem... was wrong: we had more to offer, they had other priorities. (This difference in scope [Israel v. Palestine? Or Israel v. the region?] mirrors a certain type of explainer for left v right, generally.) And that's where the frame of the book is also the politics of the book: it is, literally, "the Gates of Gaza," the closest Kibbutz to the border, the experience of the local. And so of course Tibon is telling you what it's about to be there, and that story doesn't have much to do with Iran, but a lot, a lot, to do with the people living not more than a mile away.
Which is the more improtant front? The lesson seems to reinforce itself every day. Just this week, a barrage of rockets from Iran killed zero, while a local terrorist killed 8 in a rampage in Tel Aviv. "In the last week in Israel one or two men with guns killed a lot more people than 180 ballistic missiles from Iran, a reminder of one major lesson of last October, that advanced technology is not enough to protect us." Lahav Harkov tweeted. Maybe I can put the lesson a little more starkly, though, I feel Lahav isn't really taking this to its conclusion: It's a reminder that eliminating the Iran threat isn't enough to protect us. Maybe there's a cold calculus that, whatever terrorists of Gaza can inflict, you'd bear it to avoid a single hit from a nuclear weapon, WMD, even to be helpless in a barage of missles. This logic can obviously twist, it's hard to even write. I don't like counterfactual histories. All I can say is that the accumulation of deaths, injuries, traumas, of my family and friends, feels pretty unbearable, even sitting here, sipping an ice coffee on the upper west side on an unseasonally warm October 7th.
I too, was fooled by Bibi's dream. I considered myself a pragmatist. Ultimately I looked around and didn’t see a peace partner, and if wait we must, then maybe we should at least get a move on where we can. But it's a form of opting out. (I was profoundly shaped by the 2005 disengagement when I was living in Israel, which is critiqued in a similar vain, p122.) Bibi thinks we can opt out of Gaza and that what happens there is of no consequence to the safety of the Israelis. There is a liberal version of opting out too that briefly peeps out: Amir himself considers leaving Israel at one point, frustrated with the political landscape. "... for the first time since we'd moved to Nahal Oz, Miri and I spoke about the possibility of leaving - the kibbutz, and perhaps even the country - for good." (p235) That's my emphasis, in italics, but I can't help but recognize the classic secularist out, it mirrors too what I hear from all my ex-colleagues as well, and the good but secular people who feel just a little bit too successful and humanistic and idealistic to have to deal with this messy reality. But guess what: There is no opting out, there is only diving in. That’s bravery, and that’s something I take with me from this book: From the project of Nachal Oz, and from Noam Tibon.
February 3, 2025
Tibon, ironically, fatefully finds himself as a professional journalist ideally situated for the scoop of his life. He and his wife and two very young daughters lived, for nearly a decade, on the frontier of Gaza. Nahar Oz, about 45o residents, perches near the fence. So close that the Iron Dome cannot protect them, as seven seconds are all which separates the settlers on the kibbutz from rocket attacks.
He intersperses the history of the region and the agricultural community with the events of the deadly Hamas invasion on 10/7. Not the first assault. The title of the book comes from a rousing patriotic speech eulogizing a murderer defender of the enclave in the 1950s, immortalized in a defiant visit by Moshe Dayan and David Ben-Gurion. Tellingly, Anwar Sadat a generation later would happily abandon
Gaza Strip to the Israelis, relieved not to care for the Muslim masses within a 24-by-7 mile expanse.
The narrative covers the expected content germane to the neighborhood and the stories of its Jewish and Arab inhabitants. Not much on the Nova music festival survivors half-a-dozen miles away, but a lot about those civilian and military citizens who rallied against overwhelming odds, as the nearby base was overrun, and defenses eliminated, to fend off waves of terrorists, as well as teenagers and children tagging along to steal the spoils from the victims, who were often fooled by their assailants.
It's a sober story. He remains thoughtful, alert to ambiguity and ambition among the conflicting tales. And while it's far too early to return for good, he and his kibbutzniks remain committed to the peace even as they must stay ever watchful. A useful correction to the propaganda of much in media now.
He intersperses the history of the region and the agricultural community with the events of the deadly Hamas invasion on 10/7. Not the first assault. The title of the book comes from a rousing patriotic speech eulogizing a murderer defender of the enclave in the 1950s, immortalized in a defiant visit by Moshe Dayan and David Ben-Gurion. Tellingly, Anwar Sadat a generation later would happily abandon
Gaza Strip to the Israelis, relieved not to care for the Muslim masses within a 24-by-7 mile expanse.
The narrative covers the expected content germane to the neighborhood and the stories of its Jewish and Arab inhabitants. Not much on the Nova music festival survivors half-a-dozen miles away, but a lot about those civilian and military citizens who rallied against overwhelming odds, as the nearby base was overrun, and defenses eliminated, to fend off waves of terrorists, as well as teenagers and children tagging along to steal the spoils from the victims, who were often fooled by their assailants.
It's a sober story. He remains thoughtful, alert to ambiguity and ambition among the conflicting tales. And while it's far too early to return for good, he and his kibbutzniks remain committed to the peace even as they must stay ever watchful. A useful correction to the propaganda of much in media now.
November 18, 2025
Foarte emoționantă povestea de supraviețuire a autorului în Nahal Oz, kibbutz-ul cel mai apropiat de frontiera cu Fâșia Gaza. Nu vreau să spun mai multe, vă las pe voi să o descoperiți.
În schimb, insist pe slaba pregătire a apărării israeliene. Frontiera cu Gaza era păzită de doar 600 de soldați. Cel mai mare pericol era considerat infiltrarea teroriștilor prin tunele. Pentru a stopa acest fenomen, guvernul a construit un zid în adâncime, până la 160 de m. o adevărată Linie Maginot subterană. La fel cum armatele germane au ocolit Linia Maginot în timpul celui de-al Doilea Război Mondial, și în acest caz, teroriștii nu s-au atins de zidul subteran, atacând zidul de deasupra cu buldozere și explozibili, în peste 30 de puncte. Atacul a fost executat de peste 3000 de teroriști Hamas.
Militarii din baza situată lângă Nahal Oz au raportat înainte de atac mișcări suspecte dincolo de graniță. Dar superiorii le-au ignorat observațíile. În cursul atacului, soldații din bază au fost rapid copleșiți.
Fiecare kibbutz (sat organizat în trecut pe principii socialiste) are câțiva cetățeni însărcinați cu securitatea. Decizia de a păstra armele într-un arsenal, de teama furturilor, a agravat situația celor din Nahal Oz, pentru că nu au mai avut timp ca să reintre în posesia armelor.
Zona de frontieră cu Fășia Gaza este un fief electoral al Partidului Muncii, cu orientare de stânga, favorabil semnării unui acord de pace cu palestinienii. Autorul însuși critică politicile premierului Netanyahu, reprezentantul partidului Likud, de dreapta. "Bibi" Netanyahu a stabilit un canal de comunicare cu liderii Hamas prin intermediul Qatarului. Periodic, statul din Golf trimitea, cu sprijinul Israelului, bani în Gaza pentru a construi școli, spitale și alte obiective umanitare. Era un mod al lui Netanyahu de a cumpăra liniștea pe termen scurt, pentru a se ocupa de probleme mai stringente, cum ar fi programul nuclear iranian. De fapt, Netanyahu are nevoie de Hamas, pentru a bloca procesul de pace: "Cu ăștia vreți să semnăm un tratat de pace?", declara Netanyahu.
Istoria relațiilor palestinieno-israeliene și drama personală a lui Amir Tibon sunt prezentate alternativ.
Recomand
În schimb, insist pe slaba pregătire a apărării israeliene. Frontiera cu Gaza era păzită de doar 600 de soldați. Cel mai mare pericol era considerat infiltrarea teroriștilor prin tunele. Pentru a stopa acest fenomen, guvernul a construit un zid în adâncime, până la 160 de m. o adevărată Linie Maginot subterană. La fel cum armatele germane au ocolit Linia Maginot în timpul celui de-al Doilea Război Mondial, și în acest caz, teroriștii nu s-au atins de zidul subteran, atacând zidul de deasupra cu buldozere și explozibili, în peste 30 de puncte. Atacul a fost executat de peste 3000 de teroriști Hamas.
Militarii din baza situată lângă Nahal Oz au raportat înainte de atac mișcări suspecte dincolo de graniță. Dar superiorii le-au ignorat observațíile. În cursul atacului, soldații din bază au fost rapid copleșiți.
Fiecare kibbutz (sat organizat în trecut pe principii socialiste) are câțiva cetățeni însărcinați cu securitatea. Decizia de a păstra armele într-un arsenal, de teama furturilor, a agravat situația celor din Nahal Oz, pentru că nu au mai avut timp ca să reintre în posesia armelor.
Zona de frontieră cu Fășia Gaza este un fief electoral al Partidului Muncii, cu orientare de stânga, favorabil semnării unui acord de pace cu palestinienii. Autorul însuși critică politicile premierului Netanyahu, reprezentantul partidului Likud, de dreapta. "Bibi" Netanyahu a stabilit un canal de comunicare cu liderii Hamas prin intermediul Qatarului. Periodic, statul din Golf trimitea, cu sprijinul Israelului, bani în Gaza pentru a construi școli, spitale și alte obiective umanitare. Era un mod al lui Netanyahu de a cumpăra liniștea pe termen scurt, pentru a se ocupa de probleme mai stringente, cum ar fi programul nuclear iranian. De fapt, Netanyahu are nevoie de Hamas, pentru a bloca procesul de pace: "Cu ăștia vreți să semnăm un tratat de pace?", declara Netanyahu.
Istoria relațiilor palestinieno-israeliene și drama personală a lui Amir Tibon sunt prezentate alternativ.
Recomand
March 16, 2025
A powerful narration of the events of 10/7/23 at Nahal Oz kibbutz in Israel. The author, Amir Tibon, his wife and two young daughters had to shelter in place in the reinforced safe room of their house in Nahal Oz for hours, while hearing gunfire and bomb blasts outside. Before his cell phone died, he was able to reach his father in Tel Aviv to let him know that they were safe for now. Unbeknownst to him, his parents immediately headed towards Nahal Oz to try to rescue them.
Interspersed with Amir’s story of October 7, are chapters about the history of Israel and especially the borderlands regions and the Nahal Oz kibbutz, since Nahal Oz is just a few hundred feet from the Gaza border.
Amir Tibon is a diplomatic correspondents with Haaretz, Israel’s paper of record and his journalistic chops show in the writing. You are in the safe room with them, feeling everything they are experiencing, as well as with his parents as they had to Nahal Oz to help them. His narrative of the history of the region is well written, factual and compelling. Although his prose makes the history understandable, there is nothing understandable about the politics of the region and the ongoing animosity between Israel and its neighbors. Amir saves his harshness criticism for Prime Minister Netanyahu, who he blames for the events of October 7 and the aftermath.
“There are no leaders in the land these days - not in on the Israeli side or the Palestinian one. In their places are psychopaths and egomaniacs, some of whom dream of endless war and of annihilating the other side, whatever the cost; others are simply too weak and feckless to stand up to those who have dragged all of us into this nightmare.”
The title comes from a quote from Mosha Dayan in 1956: “There, in the palm of my hand, are Dayan’s words about ‘the young man who left Tel Aviv to build his home at the gates of Gaza’ and of those heavy gates which ‘weigh too heavily on his shoulders and overcame him.’”
“Gaza’s gates still weigh heavily on our country, as heavily as if Dayan had delivered his speech only yesterday. But as I walk out of the cemetery, I realize there’s more to the story. These gates don’t just weigh on our shoulders, as Dayan said back then; in the years and decades to come, they will weigh even more heavily on our souls.”
The book is well researched and compellingly written. I will warn you not to read this before you go to sleep. It will give you nightmares of being trapped in a safe room
An absolute recommend.
Interspersed with Amir’s story of October 7, are chapters about the history of Israel and especially the borderlands regions and the Nahal Oz kibbutz, since Nahal Oz is just a few hundred feet from the Gaza border.
Amir Tibon is a diplomatic correspondents with Haaretz, Israel’s paper of record and his journalistic chops show in the writing. You are in the safe room with them, feeling everything they are experiencing, as well as with his parents as they had to Nahal Oz to help them. His narrative of the history of the region is well written, factual and compelling. Although his prose makes the history understandable, there is nothing understandable about the politics of the region and the ongoing animosity between Israel and its neighbors. Amir saves his harshness criticism for Prime Minister Netanyahu, who he blames for the events of October 7 and the aftermath.
“There are no leaders in the land these days - not in on the Israeli side or the Palestinian one. In their places are psychopaths and egomaniacs, some of whom dream of endless war and of annihilating the other side, whatever the cost; others are simply too weak and feckless to stand up to those who have dragged all of us into this nightmare.”
The title comes from a quote from Mosha Dayan in 1956: “There, in the palm of my hand, are Dayan’s words about ‘the young man who left Tel Aviv to build his home at the gates of Gaza’ and of those heavy gates which ‘weigh too heavily on his shoulders and overcame him.’”
“Gaza’s gates still weigh heavily on our country, as heavily as if Dayan had delivered his speech only yesterday. But as I walk out of the cemetery, I realize there’s more to the story. These gates don’t just weigh on our shoulders, as Dayan said back then; in the years and decades to come, they will weigh even more heavily on our souls.”
The book is well researched and compellingly written. I will warn you not to read this before you go to sleep. It will give you nightmares of being trapped in a safe room
An absolute recommend.
April 6, 2025
I was very conflicted about how to rate this book. Tibon's personal account of his experience on October 7th, his father's story, and the experience of his neighbors were both intriguing and riveting. The early history of Nahal Oz and the Gaza border region was also fascinating. Those aspects deserved 5 stars.
But his telling of modern history and his political analysis really ruined it for me.
There was zero nuance or any effort to tell the story from other perspectives. Hamas and the Israeli right were the villains. The Israeli right is motivated only by corruption, religious fundamentalism, incompetence, weakness, and hatred. The Israeli left and the Palestinian Authority are the victims of their extremist counterparts who prevent them from making peace and building a utopia. It was a shallow telling and deeply disappointing. There is certainly much fault to be found in the right and in the Netanyahu government in particular, but this black-and-white telling does a disservice to the history and how we talk about it.
But his telling of modern history and his political analysis really ruined it for me.
There was zero nuance or any effort to tell the story from other perspectives. Hamas and the Israeli right were the villains. The Israeli right is motivated only by corruption, religious fundamentalism, incompetence, weakness, and hatred. The Israeli left and the Palestinian Authority are the victims of their extremist counterparts who prevent them from making peace and building a utopia. It was a shallow telling and deeply disappointing. There is certainly much fault to be found in the right and in the Netanyahu government in particular, but this black-and-white telling does a disservice to the history and how we talk about it.
February 16, 2025
Not sure I have the words to describe this. It is a first class work of narrative non-fiction like Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital, but the events in this book happened an hour away from where I live, a mere 500 days ago at time of writing this. I followed this in real time. I know people who were involved. I have met released kidnap victims, I have attended funerals of soldiers, I have visited a base where teenaged conscripts were firebombed at their desks.
Tibon tells his own incredible story and also the story of Kibbutz Nachal Oz through optimistic and pessimistic times. It is heartbreaking. I don't know where we go from here, but I trust that this urgent work of reportage will continue to be read.
Tibon tells his own incredible story and also the story of Kibbutz Nachal Oz through optimistic and pessimistic times. It is heartbreaking. I don't know where we go from here, but I trust that this urgent work of reportage will continue to be read.
January 9, 2025
In alternating chapters, Tibon recounts both the minute-by-minute experience of October 7—which for him began in the home he shared with his wife and two small children in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, one of the border communities that came under Hamas attack early that morning—and the larger history leading up to what happened that day. Difficult, necessary reading.
November 18, 2024
To my knowledge, this is the only English-language, first-hand, book-length account of the horrific events of October 7th, 2023 in Southern Israel. The book is also a work of journalism the author, Amir Tibon, has done the leg work to interview many of the other witnesses to the events described. This makes it a bit of a must read for someone interested in politics. It's possible to glean most of the content of the book quite quickly by just listening to an interview of Tibon. Like many books, this could have been an essay. Nonetheless, the work is largely written in an engaging way.
Tibon is a Haaretz journalist who is a resident of Kibbutz Nahal Oz. On October 7th, his family hid silently in their dark safe room without food or toilet access for hours while under attack by Hamas militants. Eventually, they were rescued by the author's father, a former general, with a small group of IDF soldiers. The most remarkable moments of this book chronicle the spontaneous actions of General Tibon and his wife, who heroically jumped into action to save their son and his family.
In many ways, this book reads as a thriller cross-cut with political and historical commentary. A recurring theme of the book is a critique of the Israeli government. The criticism is directed at both the response to the attack and its aftermath and to the general management of Hamas/Gaza and the West Bank in recent times. Tibon is fiercely critical of Israel's prime minister, Bibi Netanyahu. Based on his commentary, his choice to live at Nahal Oz, and other information about Tibon, it appears accurate to characterize him as a member of the waning Israeli Left. In fact, this appears true of most of the victims of the October 7th attacks.
There are times when the cross-cutting organization of the work enhances the suspense or does provide helpful contextual information, but, more often than not, the interludes of commentary are distracting interruptions. The book would likely be more effective if simply divided into a recount of October 7th followed by the broader political commentary. Tibon was probably induced to use the cross-cutting to provide additional context to reader who are very unfamiliar with the history, politics, and culture of Israel.
The Gates of Gaza is a harrowing account of terror, loss, and heroism.
Tibon is a Haaretz journalist who is a resident of Kibbutz Nahal Oz. On October 7th, his family hid silently in their dark safe room without food or toilet access for hours while under attack by Hamas militants. Eventually, they were rescued by the author's father, a former general, with a small group of IDF soldiers. The most remarkable moments of this book chronicle the spontaneous actions of General Tibon and his wife, who heroically jumped into action to save their son and his family.
In many ways, this book reads as a thriller cross-cut with political and historical commentary. A recurring theme of the book is a critique of the Israeli government. The criticism is directed at both the response to the attack and its aftermath and to the general management of Hamas/Gaza and the West Bank in recent times. Tibon is fiercely critical of Israel's prime minister, Bibi Netanyahu. Based on his commentary, his choice to live at Nahal Oz, and other information about Tibon, it appears accurate to characterize him as a member of the waning Israeli Left. In fact, this appears true of most of the victims of the October 7th attacks.
There are times when the cross-cutting organization of the work enhances the suspense or does provide helpful contextual information, but, more often than not, the interludes of commentary are distracting interruptions. The book would likely be more effective if simply divided into a recount of October 7th followed by the broader political commentary. Tibon was probably induced to use the cross-cutting to provide additional context to reader who are very unfamiliar with the history, politics, and culture of Israel.
The Gates of Gaza is a harrowing account of terror, loss, and heroism.
February 25, 2025
One of this morning’s lead articles in the New York Times read “Fate of Bibas Family Recalls Trauma of October 7, Renewing Fears of Gaza Truce.” The crux of the article centered on the return of three Israeli citizen’s bodies, two babies and their mother. The problem emerged that the body of the mother was misidentified, it was another victim of this war. According to the article the “news set off a paroxysm of fury and agony in Israel rarely seen since the tumultuous days that followed the Hamas led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, when up to 1,200 people were killed and 251 were abducted, including Ms. Bibas and her sons, on the deadliest day in Israeli history.
For Palestinians, the devastation wrought by Israel’s military response to the Oct. 7 raids — a reaction that, among other consequences, razed Palestinian burial grounds and killed thousands of children including some younger than Kfir Bibas — has long overshadowed Hamas’s terrorist attacks at the start of the war.”
But Israelis remain deeply traumatized by the October assault, and the return of the Bibas boys, coupled with the uncertainty about their mother’s whereabouts and the disrespectful way that Hamas paraded the coffins on Thursday, revived the torment. The war has resulted in the death of between 40-50,000 Palestinians according to the Arab Red Crescent and the near total destruction of Gaza and its infrastructure.
The brutal attack by Hamas and the Israeli response has set the Middle East on fire resulting in an Israeli invasion of Lebanon targeting Hezbollah, a “pseudo-war” with Iran, and a long range conflict with the Houthis in Yemen. Currently, the region is experiencing a ceasefire in Gaza, which is only in its first phase and there are doubts it will continue to the next phase. The question is how did we get here, what was the experience of the attack like, and historically what events led to the attack. Answers to these questions are discussed and analyzed in Amir Tibon’s THE GATES OF GAZA. The superb monograph is part memoir as Tibon and his family reside in Nahal Oz, a Kibbutz that borders the Gaza Strip, and a historical look at events and outcomes as Tibon is an award-winning diplomatic correspondent for Haaretz, Israel’s paper of record.
One of the questions that is repeatedly asked is why Israelis settle on land so close to the Gaza border where rockets, snipers, intruders are a constant threat. The answer lies in Israeli defense policy that emerged in October 1953 when Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and General Moshe Dayan argued that the border with the Gaza Strip needed more military installations in order to be totally fortified. The border itself was not an “internationally recognized” border, but a cease fire line drawn to end the 1948-9 Israeli War of Independence. As Tibor writes, “there needed to be civilian life at the border – especially agriculture – before the region would be completely safe. A permanent population to detect and deter attacks and to convince the Arab world that the young recently founded state of Israel was there to stay.” The kibbutz which the Tibon family settled on and was attacked on October 7 was founded by sixty men and women members of a military unit called Nahal in 1953.
The title of the book was derived from a speech given by General Moshe Dayan on a day when four couples were to be married. Instead, it became a funeral oration, “the Gates of Gaza,” which originated from the biblical story of Samson fighting the Philistines. In this case the speech was to honor Roi Rothberg who had been murdered by Egyptian fire as he patrolled the boundaries of the kibbutz and tried to return Palestinians who had crossed the “demarcation line” and entered Israeli territory. The Egyptians did return the “mutilated body” of their victim.
If one fast forwards to 2025 nothing has really changed between Palestinians and Israelis. Wars seem to break out every few years, constant rocket fire from Gaza with the inevitable Israeli response, border incursions from both sides leading to numerous deaths, and leaders on both sides whose ego’s, lust for power, and what I guess is called ideology dominate. Tibon focuses on these aspects throughout the narrative, along with his family’s personal journey and survival on October 7.
Tibon structures his book with alternating chapters. First we have the attack of October 7, then a history lesson. He moves on with chapters alternating between the events he and his family experienced on October 7, continuing with a careful historical analysis of events and personalities leading up to today. Tibon integrates the Hamas attack on his family, their escape into the “safe room” in their house to wait out the violence occurring outside the front door. Tibon assumed that the “all clear” would be sounded within a few hours as usually is the case, but much to his surprise this was different as the bullets, mortars, and rockets continued. Tibon would soon realize that this was not a random attack by a terror cell, but a large well planned operation that would not be over quickly. The key for Tibon was his two toddlers, Carmel and Galia, and his wife Miri. The task was to keep the children quiet as not to give the terrorists another family to murder. Tibon did not realize how bad the situation had become with a nearby military base overrun by Hamas and the hundreds of bodies scattered between Nahal Oz and the base – throughout the early hours, Tibon wondered where the Israeli Defense Force was. Women and children were being murdered, and the IDF was nowhere to be found.
The historical narrative and analysis are succinct and damning in terms of Israeli and Palestinian Authority and Hamas leadership. Tibon chooses certain historical aspects as a means of explaining how the Israeli and Palestinian people have reached the abyss they now found themselves in. A key turning point was reached in 1987 as Palestinians could no longer accept the loss of prime agricultural land, which in part led to the first Intifada. Interestingly, Yasir Arafat and the PLO ;leadership were totally caught off guard by events. As a result of the violence Sheik Ahmed Yassin and Palestinian Islamists formed a new organization called Hamas – Islamic Resistance Movement. The Intifada turned Hamas into a central force in the Palestinian community. The more forceful the Israel response, the more Hamas’ popularity and ideology were enhanced, reducing the influence and power of the PLO.
Two villains emerge in Tibon’s discussion. First is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has been in office most of the last two decades. In 1993 Tibon argued that Netanyahu worked to prevent a peace settlement following the Oslo Accords. He worked to incite Israel’s right wing which led to the assassination of then Israeli Prime Minister and architect of Oslo, Yitzhak Rabin. Netanyahu would defeat Shimon Peres in the next election and slowed down the peace process increasing Hamas’ popularity at the expense of Arafat. He then ordered the assassination of Khaled Mashal, the head of Hamas’ Political Bureau. After the attempt was botched, Netanyahu agreed to release Shiek Ahmed Yassin, Hamas’ spiritual leader, and blocked the extradition of Mussa Abu-Marzouk who raised millions of dollars to fund Hamas, allowing him to settle in Jordan. If one fast forwards to October 7, Netanyahu’s fingerprints are all over the disaster even though he was thrown out of office in 1999.
Netanyahu would return to power in 2009 and would later be accused of corruption. The Israel Police began investigating Netanyahu in December 2016 and subsequently recommended indictments against him. On 21 November 2019, Netanyahu was officially indicted for breach of trust, accepting bribes, and fraud, leading him to legally relinquish his ministry portfolios other than prime minister. His legal problems led to legislation by the Israeli right wing in the Knesset designed to reduce the power of the Israeli Supreme Court which provoked enormous demonstrations in Israel in 2022 and 2023. For many, Netanyahu’s legal problems were a national security threat for the state of Israel as he put his own personal quest for power to escape prosecution above the needs of the Israeli people. Netanyahu’s behavior and policies further emboldened Hamas as he approved Qatari funding of Hamas whereby millions of dollars were used to build the tunnel infrastructure that allowed for attacks against Israel for years and finally the events of October 7.
Netanyahu also approved the trade of 1027 Palestinian prisoners for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier seized by Hamas in 2007. Among those released in 2011 was Yihyia Sinwar, the Hamas tactician and ideologue who designed the plan that was carried out on October 7. Further damning of Netanyahu took place in 2016 as Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned him, a right wing member of Likud that Israel intelligence uncovered a plot which would be catastrophic for Israel: “a secret plan by Hamas to cross the border fence at several points simultaneously, attack a long list of Israeli communities near Gaza, murder hundreds of citizens, and take dozens of hostages into Gaza. With this evidence and the fact that Hamas was using Qatari money to build tunnels and rockets, Netanyahu did nothing.
There are obviously others who deserve condemnation for the events of October 7. Yasir Arafat’s refusal to make peace in 2000, the corruption of the PLO and later the fecklessness of Arafat’s replacement Mahmoud Abbas and his corruption laden administration in the Palestinian Authority which was defeated by Hamas in elections and the battlefield. Sinwar is also a key figure who spent years in an Israeli jail for murdering Israeli citizens. While in prison he learned Hebrew and studied every aspect of Israeli life and politics he could and began to develop his plan for a massive incursion of Israel from Gaza. Even when released from prison Sinwar worked methodically applying Qatari money, Netanyahu’s errors, and the fact that by March 2023 Israel was being torn apart from the inside with many reserve soldiers and pilots refusing to carry out orders because of the demonstration by Israeli citizens against Netanyahu’s cohorts in the Knesset’s attempts to reduce the power of the Israeli Supreme Court for the benefit of its Prime Minister. Sinwar would ramp up attacks in the West Bank in the summer of 2023 in hindsight a diversion for October 7. Netanyahu sent 30 battalions of soldiers to the West Bank, leaving only 4 to defend the kibbutzim on the Gaza border. As this was occurring Netanyahu encouraged Qatar to continue to send millions to Hamas.
A key event which Tibon uses to tie Israeli history to the events of October 7 revolves around the first time Nahal Oz was attacked in 1956 when Palestinian fedayeen encouraged by Egyptian president Gamal Nasser crossed the border and killed Roi Rotberg, a young member of the kibbutz, and taking his mutilated body back to Gaza. As Max Strasser writes in his November 4, 2024, New York Times book review entitled “The Reckoning”; “The next day, Moshe Dayan, then the military’s chief of staff, delivered the most famous eulogy in Israeli history.
“For eight years they have been sitting in the refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we have been transforming the lands and the villages, where they and their fathers dwelt, into our estate,” Dayan said. “How did we shut our eyes and refuse to look squarely at our fate, and see, in all its brutality, the destiny of our generation? Have we forgotten that this group of young people dwelling at Nahal Oz is bearing the heavy gates of Gaza on its shoulders?”
This was, Tibon writes, “a rare recognition by an Israeli leader of the Palestinian Nakba.” Dayan had identified Israel’s tragic endowment — a country built on displacement — and declared that the only response could be strength, a country where thriving in a kibbutz on a border forged in war would help secure peace.
But Tibon does not offer the whole quote. “We are the generation of settlement,” Dayan went on. “Our children will not have a life if we do not dig shelters, and without barbed wire and machine guns we will not be able to pave roads and dig water wells.”
In the epilogue, Tibon goes back to visit his deserted, bullet-scarred kibbutz and stands looking over the border at the rubble of Gaza. He rereads Dayan’s eulogy and wonders if his former neighbors at Nahal Oz will someday be able to return if peace with the people on the other side of the border is conceivable. It’s certainly hard to imagine, so long as the people of Gaza live with barbed wire and machine guns.”
For Palestinians, the devastation wrought by Israel’s military response to the Oct. 7 raids — a reaction that, among other consequences, razed Palestinian burial grounds and killed thousands of children including some younger than Kfir Bibas — has long overshadowed Hamas’s terrorist attacks at the start of the war.”
But Israelis remain deeply traumatized by the October assault, and the return of the Bibas boys, coupled with the uncertainty about their mother’s whereabouts and the disrespectful way that Hamas paraded the coffins on Thursday, revived the torment. The war has resulted in the death of between 40-50,000 Palestinians according to the Arab Red Crescent and the near total destruction of Gaza and its infrastructure.
The brutal attack by Hamas and the Israeli response has set the Middle East on fire resulting in an Israeli invasion of Lebanon targeting Hezbollah, a “pseudo-war” with Iran, and a long range conflict with the Houthis in Yemen. Currently, the region is experiencing a ceasefire in Gaza, which is only in its first phase and there are doubts it will continue to the next phase. The question is how did we get here, what was the experience of the attack like, and historically what events led to the attack. Answers to these questions are discussed and analyzed in Amir Tibon’s THE GATES OF GAZA. The superb monograph is part memoir as Tibon and his family reside in Nahal Oz, a Kibbutz that borders the Gaza Strip, and a historical look at events and outcomes as Tibon is an award-winning diplomatic correspondent for Haaretz, Israel’s paper of record.
One of the questions that is repeatedly asked is why Israelis settle on land so close to the Gaza border where rockets, snipers, intruders are a constant threat. The answer lies in Israeli defense policy that emerged in October 1953 when Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and General Moshe Dayan argued that the border with the Gaza Strip needed more military installations in order to be totally fortified. The border itself was not an “internationally recognized” border, but a cease fire line drawn to end the 1948-9 Israeli War of Independence. As Tibor writes, “there needed to be civilian life at the border – especially agriculture – before the region would be completely safe. A permanent population to detect and deter attacks and to convince the Arab world that the young recently founded state of Israel was there to stay.” The kibbutz which the Tibon family settled on and was attacked on October 7 was founded by sixty men and women members of a military unit called Nahal in 1953.
The title of the book was derived from a speech given by General Moshe Dayan on a day when four couples were to be married. Instead, it became a funeral oration, “the Gates of Gaza,” which originated from the biblical story of Samson fighting the Philistines. In this case the speech was to honor Roi Rothberg who had been murdered by Egyptian fire as he patrolled the boundaries of the kibbutz and tried to return Palestinians who had crossed the “demarcation line” and entered Israeli territory. The Egyptians did return the “mutilated body” of their victim.
If one fast forwards to 2025 nothing has really changed between Palestinians and Israelis. Wars seem to break out every few years, constant rocket fire from Gaza with the inevitable Israeli response, border incursions from both sides leading to numerous deaths, and leaders on both sides whose ego’s, lust for power, and what I guess is called ideology dominate. Tibon focuses on these aspects throughout the narrative, along with his family’s personal journey and survival on October 7.
Tibon structures his book with alternating chapters. First we have the attack of October 7, then a history lesson. He moves on with chapters alternating between the events he and his family experienced on October 7, continuing with a careful historical analysis of events and personalities leading up to today. Tibon integrates the Hamas attack on his family, their escape into the “safe room” in their house to wait out the violence occurring outside the front door. Tibon assumed that the “all clear” would be sounded within a few hours as usually is the case, but much to his surprise this was different as the bullets, mortars, and rockets continued. Tibon would soon realize that this was not a random attack by a terror cell, but a large well planned operation that would not be over quickly. The key for Tibon was his two toddlers, Carmel and Galia, and his wife Miri. The task was to keep the children quiet as not to give the terrorists another family to murder. Tibon did not realize how bad the situation had become with a nearby military base overrun by Hamas and the hundreds of bodies scattered between Nahal Oz and the base – throughout the early hours, Tibon wondered where the Israeli Defense Force was. Women and children were being murdered, and the IDF was nowhere to be found.
The historical narrative and analysis are succinct and damning in terms of Israeli and Palestinian Authority and Hamas leadership. Tibon chooses certain historical aspects as a means of explaining how the Israeli and Palestinian people have reached the abyss they now found themselves in. A key turning point was reached in 1987 as Palestinians could no longer accept the loss of prime agricultural land, which in part led to the first Intifada. Interestingly, Yasir Arafat and the PLO ;leadership were totally caught off guard by events. As a result of the violence Sheik Ahmed Yassin and Palestinian Islamists formed a new organization called Hamas – Islamic Resistance Movement. The Intifada turned Hamas into a central force in the Palestinian community. The more forceful the Israel response, the more Hamas’ popularity and ideology were enhanced, reducing the influence and power of the PLO.
Two villains emerge in Tibon’s discussion. First is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has been in office most of the last two decades. In 1993 Tibon argued that Netanyahu worked to prevent a peace settlement following the Oslo Accords. He worked to incite Israel’s right wing which led to the assassination of then Israeli Prime Minister and architect of Oslo, Yitzhak Rabin. Netanyahu would defeat Shimon Peres in the next election and slowed down the peace process increasing Hamas’ popularity at the expense of Arafat. He then ordered the assassination of Khaled Mashal, the head of Hamas’ Political Bureau. After the attempt was botched, Netanyahu agreed to release Shiek Ahmed Yassin, Hamas’ spiritual leader, and blocked the extradition of Mussa Abu-Marzouk who raised millions of dollars to fund Hamas, allowing him to settle in Jordan. If one fast forwards to October 7, Netanyahu’s fingerprints are all over the disaster even though he was thrown out of office in 1999.
Netanyahu would return to power in 2009 and would later be accused of corruption. The Israel Police began investigating Netanyahu in December 2016 and subsequently recommended indictments against him. On 21 November 2019, Netanyahu was officially indicted for breach of trust, accepting bribes, and fraud, leading him to legally relinquish his ministry portfolios other than prime minister. His legal problems led to legislation by the Israeli right wing in the Knesset designed to reduce the power of the Israeli Supreme Court which provoked enormous demonstrations in Israel in 2022 and 2023. For many, Netanyahu’s legal problems were a national security threat for the state of Israel as he put his own personal quest for power to escape prosecution above the needs of the Israeli people. Netanyahu’s behavior and policies further emboldened Hamas as he approved Qatari funding of Hamas whereby millions of dollars were used to build the tunnel infrastructure that allowed for attacks against Israel for years and finally the events of October 7.
Netanyahu also approved the trade of 1027 Palestinian prisoners for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier seized by Hamas in 2007. Among those released in 2011 was Yihyia Sinwar, the Hamas tactician and ideologue who designed the plan that was carried out on October 7. Further damning of Netanyahu took place in 2016 as Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned him, a right wing member of Likud that Israel intelligence uncovered a plot which would be catastrophic for Israel: “a secret plan by Hamas to cross the border fence at several points simultaneously, attack a long list of Israeli communities near Gaza, murder hundreds of citizens, and take dozens of hostages into Gaza. With this evidence and the fact that Hamas was using Qatari money to build tunnels and rockets, Netanyahu did nothing.
There are obviously others who deserve condemnation for the events of October 7. Yasir Arafat’s refusal to make peace in 2000, the corruption of the PLO and later the fecklessness of Arafat’s replacement Mahmoud Abbas and his corruption laden administration in the Palestinian Authority which was defeated by Hamas in elections and the battlefield. Sinwar is also a key figure who spent years in an Israeli jail for murdering Israeli citizens. While in prison he learned Hebrew and studied every aspect of Israeli life and politics he could and began to develop his plan for a massive incursion of Israel from Gaza. Even when released from prison Sinwar worked methodically applying Qatari money, Netanyahu’s errors, and the fact that by March 2023 Israel was being torn apart from the inside with many reserve soldiers and pilots refusing to carry out orders because of the demonstration by Israeli citizens against Netanyahu’s cohorts in the Knesset’s attempts to reduce the power of the Israeli Supreme Court for the benefit of its Prime Minister. Sinwar would ramp up attacks in the West Bank in the summer of 2023 in hindsight a diversion for October 7. Netanyahu sent 30 battalions of soldiers to the West Bank, leaving only 4 to defend the kibbutzim on the Gaza border. As this was occurring Netanyahu encouraged Qatar to continue to send millions to Hamas.
A key event which Tibon uses to tie Israeli history to the events of October 7 revolves around the first time Nahal Oz was attacked in 1956 when Palestinian fedayeen encouraged by Egyptian president Gamal Nasser crossed the border and killed Roi Rotberg, a young member of the kibbutz, and taking his mutilated body back to Gaza. As Max Strasser writes in his November 4, 2024, New York Times book review entitled “The Reckoning”; “The next day, Moshe Dayan, then the military’s chief of staff, delivered the most famous eulogy in Israeli history.
“For eight years they have been sitting in the refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we have been transforming the lands and the villages, where they and their fathers dwelt, into our estate,” Dayan said. “How did we shut our eyes and refuse to look squarely at our fate, and see, in all its brutality, the destiny of our generation? Have we forgotten that this group of young people dwelling at Nahal Oz is bearing the heavy gates of Gaza on its shoulders?”
This was, Tibon writes, “a rare recognition by an Israeli leader of the Palestinian Nakba.” Dayan had identified Israel’s tragic endowment — a country built on displacement — and declared that the only response could be strength, a country where thriving in a kibbutz on a border forged in war would help secure peace.
But Tibon does not offer the whole quote. “We are the generation of settlement,” Dayan went on. “Our children will not have a life if we do not dig shelters, and without barbed wire and machine guns we will not be able to pave roads and dig water wells.”
In the epilogue, Tibon goes back to visit his deserted, bullet-scarred kibbutz and stands looking over the border at the rubble of Gaza. He rereads Dayan’s eulogy and wonders if his former neighbors at Nahal Oz will someday be able to return if peace with the people on the other side of the border is conceivable. It’s certainly hard to imagine, so long as the people of Gaza live with barbed wire and machine guns.”
November 15, 2025
MUST READ. This is a very powerful book about the impact of the October 7th attacks on Kibbutz Nahal Oz, as experienced by Amir Tibon, a journalist for Haaretz who lived there. His father, a retired general, drove down from Tel Aviv that day to rescue Amir and his family. This book goes into great detail about their stories and the events of that day, but it is so much more:
* It is the history of this kibbutz and the story of how and why it was founded.
* It is the history of Gaza, the development of Hamas, and the interactions between Israel and Gaza.
* it is the story of failures in leadership on both sides of the border, which led to the devastating attacks on Oct. 7.
Amir Tibon has done a great service to those who survived and to those who lost their lives that day by capturing their stories in such detail.
* It is the history of this kibbutz and the story of how and why it was founded.
* It is the history of Gaza, the development of Hamas, and the interactions between Israel and Gaza.
* it is the story of failures in leadership on both sides of the border, which led to the devastating attacks on Oct. 7.
Amir Tibon has done a great service to those who survived and to those who lost their lives that day by capturing their stories in such detail.
February 19, 2025
Yes. Israel has been in the wrong for most part of the conflict. But nothing justifies what Hamas terrorists perpetrated on 07 Oct 2023. Bl..dy animals.
October 13, 2024
An empathetic, first person witness to the horrors of October 7th and its aftermath
Amir Tibon is a fine Israeli journalist, working for HaAretz, who survived the barbarous Hamas attack on his home, Kibbutz Nachal Oz, and has produced a memoir, beautifully written yet tragic and heartbreaking.
I could hardly put this memoir down until I had read every word.
I am an Israeli who spent the first 16 years of my adult life in Israel as a member of young, border kibbutzim, so many of the writer’s sentiments about raising young children in a potentially dangerous situation were very familiar to me. Amir writes about his decision, with his then girlfriend, to leave Tel Aviv and go to live in a border kibbutz less than a mile from the Gaza border and of the years he spent there prior to October 7th 2023, including the close relationship his family developed with many of the other members, who all appeared later in the book in connection to their experiences on that awful day when the kibbutz was overrun by heavily armed Hamas fighters, who terrorised and brutalised the citizens until they were belatedly overcome by Israeli security forces.
Among the security forces who rescued his family was Amir’s father, a retired general living in Tel Aviv, who, on hearing the news, put on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and with a pistol in his hand and his wife at the wheel, drove towards his son’s kibbutz. The story of his arrival at the kibbutz, and the battles on the way there, have the makings of a Hollywood thriller on their own.
Interspersed between the chapters are well researched history of the kibbutz, the area, the relations with the population of the Gaza strip, the relationship of Hamas with the different Israeli governments, most of whom were led by Benjamin Netanyahu, the historic attempts to promote a peaceful solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict , the Palestinian infighting over the years and the rise of the fanatical Islamic group, Hamas.
I have been watching Israeli news over the past year, and I thought I’d seen and heard almost everything about October 7th and its aftermath, but this extremely important eye-witness account , together with the historical background, adds much to my understanding of the events and their causes.
This book is written for a Western audience, and is very well explained, so I would certainly recommend this to anyone who is interested in what actually happened on October 7th in the small communities and towns near the Israel-Gaza border.
Amir Tibon is a fine Israeli journalist, working for HaAretz, who survived the barbarous Hamas attack on his home, Kibbutz Nachal Oz, and has produced a memoir, beautifully written yet tragic and heartbreaking.
I could hardly put this memoir down until I had read every word.
I am an Israeli who spent the first 16 years of my adult life in Israel as a member of young, border kibbutzim, so many of the writer’s sentiments about raising young children in a potentially dangerous situation were very familiar to me. Amir writes about his decision, with his then girlfriend, to leave Tel Aviv and go to live in a border kibbutz less than a mile from the Gaza border and of the years he spent there prior to October 7th 2023, including the close relationship his family developed with many of the other members, who all appeared later in the book in connection to their experiences on that awful day when the kibbutz was overrun by heavily armed Hamas fighters, who terrorised and brutalised the citizens until they were belatedly overcome by Israeli security forces.
Among the security forces who rescued his family was Amir’s father, a retired general living in Tel Aviv, who, on hearing the news, put on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and with a pistol in his hand and his wife at the wheel, drove towards his son’s kibbutz. The story of his arrival at the kibbutz, and the battles on the way there, have the makings of a Hollywood thriller on their own.
Interspersed between the chapters are well researched history of the kibbutz, the area, the relations with the population of the Gaza strip, the relationship of Hamas with the different Israeli governments, most of whom were led by Benjamin Netanyahu, the historic attempts to promote a peaceful solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict , the Palestinian infighting over the years and the rise of the fanatical Islamic group, Hamas.
I have been watching Israeli news over the past year, and I thought I’d seen and heard almost everything about October 7th and its aftermath, but this extremely important eye-witness account , together with the historical background, adds much to my understanding of the events and their causes.
This book is written for a Western audience, and is very well explained, so I would certainly recommend this to anyone who is interested in what actually happened on October 7th in the small communities and towns near the Israel-Gaza border.
November 30, 2024
This Pulitzer-worthy work is neither a dry rehashing of recent history, an overly sentimental memoir, or a highly polemic examination of current events. It is soul bending, to be sure, and just as exhilarating as any Jason Bourne novel, while it finds tremendous value to both experts and novices of the Arab-Israeli conflict. While there may be other subsequent efforts to recount the events of October 7, the bar has been set here.
If I was a wealthy man, I’d purchase enough copies to hand out to everyone I know.
If I was a wealthy man, I’d purchase enough copies to hand out to everyone I know.
October 1, 2024
Couldn’t put it down, captivating, depressing, but also inspiring.
September 27, 2024
Excellent read. It cleared up many questions I had.
November 21, 2025
Wow…a little hard to get started, and a little hard to follow the ping-pong timeline, but so gripping. I read the last 150 pages in one sitting. It’s so very, very important to read this book.
February 1, 2025
Wow. Just wow. After October 7th, I was so alarmed and angry by the behavior mainly among the progressive left towards Jews. I kept wondering when people would pay attention to the atrocities committed against Israelis on that fateful day. The author does an amazing job of taking us through those day’s events, the horrifying moments he experienced with his family, and the unbelievably brave steps his father took in trying to reach his son and family. In between chapters about October 7th, the author reflects on how Israel got to that day and the historical events leading up to it. I’ve spent a lot of time reading about Israel’s history this year, but I haven’t read a balanced perspective on what they did wrong. The author does a great job discussing this aspect of the events leading up to October 7th, and what we can realistically expect moving forward. I recommend this to anyone who wants to learn more about the crisis in the Middle East specifically surrounding the events of October 7th.
October 28, 2024
A well written firsthand account of the attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7, mixed in with the history of the Nahal Oz kibbutz (and Gaza envelope). For the most part, the book is excellent - gripping, emotional and informative. My only ding would be the infiltration of politics. Maybe it is hard to keep it out given the topic, but the author does seem to equate the current Israeli government with the current Palestinian leadership. While the former is certainly substandard and worthy of much criticism, the latter is in a different universe of malevolence.
March 4, 2025
A must read! Powerful first hand account of the harrowing events of October 7 while also providing historical context in an easily digestible format and coherent narrative. Highly recommend for anyone to read, even if you have 0 knowledge of the conflict.
I could not put the book down since I started it.
May this ongoing conflict end soon and bring all of the hostages home.
I could not put the book down since I started it.
May this ongoing conflict end soon and bring all of the hostages home.
September 25, 2024
Exceptionally written, and an important read.
October 5, 2024
A harrowing read, but amazing story, beautifully written.
January 19, 2025
Both a truly insane story and an impressively balanced historical account. Not to mention Rambo Saba saves the day in the end. Something for everyone.
February 21, 2025
Incredibly powerful book that not only tells many harrowing tales of 10/7, but also talks about the history of the region, and the events leading up to that terrible day.
Read
March 10, 2025One of those books I was into for a few days and then put it down, and after trying to read it again realized how boring it was. I guess I’m just not interested enough, even though what I read so far was pretty informative.
Don’t plan to finish it, but I’m sure it would have helped me come to a better understanding of the Gaza/Israel issue.
Don’t plan to finish it, but I’m sure it would have helped me come to a better understanding of the Gaza/Israel issue.
July 30, 2025
Sehr gutes Buch, wenn man die Situation im Nahen Osten besser verstehen möchte.
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