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מספר אישי 7.10.23
"בעוד דקה יפוצצו את כל שכונת שייח' זאיד. המח"ט אומר בקשר כמה מילים לזכר הנופלים. כל הבניין שלנו רועד, כאילו מישהו מנער אותו. תוך דקות השמיים נצבעים באפר ואבק. ריח של פיח מחליף את ריח החורף. גשם עז מתחיל לרדת. אני אומר לעצמי, צריך המון גשם כדי לשטוף את הרוע שקיים פה. לא בטוח שיש מספיק גשם בעולם כדי לנקות את האדמה הזו"
בבוקר ה־7 באוקטובר התעורר אלקנה כהן בבית של קרובי משפחתו. כמה שעות מאוחר יותר הוא כבר עמד במסדר, ערוך ליציאה בבסיס יחידה מובחרת, מוכן לקרב. החל בכיבוש בית הספר בבית חאנון, דרך פיצוץ פירים בבית לאהיא ועד חשיפת מודיעין מדהים בג'באליה – שלושת החודשים הבאים הבהירו לו ולחבריו מעל לכל ספק: מדובר במלחמת קיום שבה ישראל חייבת לנצח.
במחברות שמצא על רצפת מרכול נטוש בעזה, החל כהן לכתוב יומן. בגילוי לב תיעד מדי יום ביומו את מראות המלחמה. בכתיבה כנה, מדויקת וקולחת, בגוף ראשון, מגיש כהן את התחושה ואת סיפורה של המלחמה מעיני הגיבורים שעושים אותה: האבק, הזיעה, האחווה, הגעגוע, והריח הנורא של המלחמה והמוות. כתיבתו של כהן אינה פוסחת על היחסים עם החברים לנשק, על המעצרים ההמוניים של המחבלים, על בתיהם של אנשי חמאס, על סיפורם של החברים שנפלו ועל התקווה הנואשת להחזיר את החטופים הביתה בשלום. בכל אלו נשזרת שגרת המלחמה של צוות מילואים מיומן: שמירות ומארבים, מיקוש ותספוק, ריבים ושיחות נפש שיכולים להתקיים רק כשהכול מסביב בוער.
מספר אישי 7-10-23 הוא סיפורו של קצין אחד, אך גם סיפורו של דור לוחמים שלם. דור שיצא לדרך בלי להסס, כשהסכנה ברורה לו, אך המטרה ברורה עוד יותר. דור שידע את תחושת השליחות ואת הפחד, את הדריכות ואת העייפות, את הגעגועים הביתה ואת הנחישות לחזור בכל זאת, פעם אחר פעם, לשדה הקרב.
* מדוע גילה העצור מג'באליה לחיילי צה"ל על מיליוני השקלים במזומן שהחביא בביתו?
* מה נמצא במצלמות הגו־פרו של פעילי חמאס?
* למה חטף המחבר בחילה בכל פעם שאכל בשר?
*כיצד נהגו החיילים כשהמחבל שחיכו לו עלה לגג הבניין עם תינוק בידיו?
אלקנה (קוּנוֹ) כהן הוא קצין קומנדו במיל', מאמן כושר לנוער ולילדים ומרצה על שירות משמעותי בצה"ל. נשוי לשירן ומתגורר ברעננה.
בבוקר ה־7 באוקטובר התעורר אלקנה כהן בבית של קרובי משפחתו. כמה שעות מאוחר יותר הוא כבר עמד במסדר, ערוך ליציאה בבסיס יחידה מובחרת, מוכן לקרב. החל בכיבוש בית הספר בבית חאנון, דרך פיצוץ פירים בבית לאהיא ועד חשיפת מודיעין מדהים בג'באליה – שלושת החודשים הבאים הבהירו לו ולחבריו מעל לכל ספק: מדובר במלחמת קיום שבה ישראל חייבת לנצח.
במחברות שמצא על רצפת מרכול נטוש בעזה, החל כהן לכתוב יומן. בגילוי לב תיעד מדי יום ביומו את מראות המלחמה. בכתיבה כנה, מדויקת וקולחת, בגוף ראשון, מגיש כהן את התחושה ואת סיפורה של המלחמה מעיני הגיבורים שעושים אותה: האבק, הזיעה, האחווה, הגעגוע, והריח הנורא של המלחמה והמוות. כתיבתו של כהן אינה פוסחת על היחסים עם החברים לנשק, על המעצרים ההמוניים של המחבלים, על בתיהם של אנשי חמאס, על סיפורם של החברים שנפלו ועל התקווה הנואשת להחזיר את החטופים הביתה בשלום. בכל אלו נשזרת שגרת המלחמה של צוות מילואים מיומן: שמירות ומארבים, מיקוש ותספוק, ריבים ושיחות נפש שיכולים להתקיים רק כשהכול מסביב בוער.
מספר אישי 7-10-23 הוא סיפורו של קצין אחד, אך גם סיפורו של דור לוחמים שלם. דור שיצא לדרך בלי להסס, כשהסכנה ברורה לו, אך המטרה ברורה עוד יותר. דור שידע את תחושת השליחות ואת הפחד, את הדריכות ואת העייפות, את הגעגועים הביתה ואת הנחישות לחזור בכל זאת, פעם אחר פעם, לשדה הקרב.
* מדוע גילה העצור מג'באליה לחיילי צה"ל על מיליוני השקלים במזומן שהחביא בביתו?
* מה נמצא במצלמות הגו־פרו של פעילי חמאס?
* למה חטף המחבר בחילה בכל פעם שאכל בשר?
*כיצד נהגו החיילים כשהמחבל שחיכו לו עלה לגג הבניין עם תינוק בידיו?
אלקנה (קוּנוֹ) כהן הוא קצין קומנדו במיל', מאמן כושר לנוער ולילדים ומרצה על שירות משמעותי בצה"ל. נשוי לשירן ומתגורר ברעננה.
262 pages, Paperback
Published February 1, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
March 7, 2025
What the news shows us is not what is actually happening. This soldier tells his story and it is as accurate portrayal of events as possible.
If you want to understand then read this.
Very hard not to admire the soldiers and their camradarie, professionalism, devotion to their and and people and sheer guts.
If you want to understand then read this.
Very hard not to admire the soldiers and their camradarie, professionalism, devotion to their and and people and sheer guts.
July 25, 2025
I am glad to have read this. I have been in the staccato process of reading Amir Tibon's, "Gates of Gaza" for the past 8 months, since December 2024, and am finding it a painful and difficult read. For Capt. Elkana Kuno Cohen, less so.
This is the story of a reserve soldier who served in Gaza in an infantry unit primarily devoted to demolitions from October to December 2023. It is the real time recording of his daily activity and emotional journey during this period-- redacted for general audiences and publication, I am sure.
For readers looking for a nuanced perspective on war at its immediate outset, reflections on the life (at time of writing) of a soldier, military strategy, geopolitics, history of the region, information and opinions on governments and society, etc., you will not find it here. It does encompass a devotion to family, heritage, and nation.
Audiobook:
Although this book should have been on my radar for its high readership in Israel, I actually found it because I am discovering Neil Shah to be such a gifted and prolific audiobook performer that I am going down his list of books and reading as many as I can.
This is the story of a reserve soldier who served in Gaza in an infantry unit primarily devoted to demolitions from October to December 2023. It is the real time recording of his daily activity and emotional journey during this period-- redacted for general audiences and publication, I am sure.
For readers looking for a nuanced perspective on war at its immediate outset, reflections on the life (at time of writing) of a soldier, military strategy, geopolitics, history of the region, information and opinions on governments and society, etc., you will not find it here. It does encompass a devotion to family, heritage, and nation.
Audiobook:
Although this book should have been on my radar for its high readership in Israel, I actually found it because I am discovering Neil Shah to be such a gifted and prolific audiobook performer that I am going down his list of books and reading as many as I can.
January 7, 2025
This was a pretty boring telling of an otherwise incredibly interesting period of warfare.
July 21, 2026
Captain Elkana “Kuno” Cohen’s war diary is a searing, unfiltered account of Israel’s just war against the genocidal Hamas regime. In the wake of the October 7th massacre, when Hamas terrorists stormed across the Gaza border to murder, mutilate, rape, and kidnap civilians, Cohen drops everything to rejoin his old commando unit.
What follows is an odyssey through the Gaza Strip, marked by firefights, tunnel searches, and heart-pounding close calls. Cohen describes stepping into homes rigged with explosives, finding terrorist manuals and weapons in schools and living rooms, and identifying a blood-soaked Hamas vehicle used in the invasion.
The depravity of Hamas is laid bare: a school textbook teaches children to erase Israel from the map; homes double as rocket labs; and entire neighborhoods are death traps laced with IEDs, booby-trapped toys, and civilian shields.
Cohen doesn’t sanitize the brutality. He confronts it. One house harbored a massive IED beneath a bed, intended to detonate during an IDF sweep. Another held improvised weapons stashed among Qur’ans and olive oil jugs. He and his team discover a Hamas ambush site beside a kindergarten.
In an especially haunting scene, they stumble across a seemingly innocent white truck, streaked with blood. It turns out to be a Hamas death van used during the slaughter of Israeli civilians on October 7th. Through these horrors, the book exposes Hamas not as a political entity but as a barbaric cult of death, a jihadist gang that weaponizes both human life and human suffering.
Cohen’s tone is one of righteous fury tempered by duty, grounded in the IDF’s moral code: “We will destroy Hamas,” he writes, “not for revenge, but for the sake of life itself.”
This is no ordinary war memoir. It is a Zionist manifesto forged in the fires of battle. Cohen reminds us that Israel’s war is not just about borders, but about civilization versus savagery. With eloquence and raw honesty, he defends the IDF’s moral high ground while condemning Hamas as “a death machine embedded in a civilian maze.”
He calls for a new Israeli renaissance, built not on vengeance but on vigilance, courage, and moral clarity. If Ben-Gurion gave birth to the State of Israel, Cohen shows how his grandchildren fight to preserve it. Zionism is not only alive, it is bulletproof. And in the face of the darkness Hamas unleashed, it is the light of Israel that still burns brightest.
❤️ 🇮🇱
What follows is an odyssey through the Gaza Strip, marked by firefights, tunnel searches, and heart-pounding close calls. Cohen describes stepping into homes rigged with explosives, finding terrorist manuals and weapons in schools and living rooms, and identifying a blood-soaked Hamas vehicle used in the invasion.
The depravity of Hamas is laid bare: a school textbook teaches children to erase Israel from the map; homes double as rocket labs; and entire neighborhoods are death traps laced with IEDs, booby-trapped toys, and civilian shields.
Cohen doesn’t sanitize the brutality. He confronts it. One house harbored a massive IED beneath a bed, intended to detonate during an IDF sweep. Another held improvised weapons stashed among Qur’ans and olive oil jugs. He and his team discover a Hamas ambush site beside a kindergarten.
In an especially haunting scene, they stumble across a seemingly innocent white truck, streaked with blood. It turns out to be a Hamas death van used during the slaughter of Israeli civilians on October 7th. Through these horrors, the book exposes Hamas not as a political entity but as a barbaric cult of death, a jihadist gang that weaponizes both human life and human suffering.
Cohen’s tone is one of righteous fury tempered by duty, grounded in the IDF’s moral code: “We will destroy Hamas,” he writes, “not for revenge, but for the sake of life itself.”
This is no ordinary war memoir. It is a Zionist manifesto forged in the fires of battle. Cohen reminds us that Israel’s war is not just about borders, but about civilization versus savagery. With eloquence and raw honesty, he defends the IDF’s moral high ground while condemning Hamas as “a death machine embedded in a civilian maze.”
He calls for a new Israeli renaissance, built not on vengeance but on vigilance, courage, and moral clarity. If Ben-Gurion gave birth to the State of Israel, Cohen shows how his grandchildren fight to preserve it. Zionism is not only alive, it is bulletproof. And in the face of the darkness Hamas unleashed, it is the light of Israel that still burns brightest.
❤️ 🇮🇱
August 25, 2026
Unique inside glimpse of modern infantry war
I bought this after a piece from it was quoted in another book. Captain Elkana serves in the IDF in Gaza in the early parts of the conflict following Hamas’ attacks on October 7. His diary covers about 86 days at the start of Israel’s military move into Gaza and although he is not engaged in a great deal of direct ‘contact’, his telling is very much ‘warts and all’.
Any combat arms or combat support soldier or officer will relate to all he writes: the uncertainty and terror of combat (most of which was house-to-house or room-to-room in apartment blocks), examining one’s mortality, the pain due to the loss of friends and colleagues, the struggle with separation from family members back home, periods of intense activity and significant boredom, struggles against weather, food, water, sleep - or lack thereof, the environment, terrain and the deep-hearted desire to return Israeli hostages: alive or dead to their families back in Israel. Elkana does not shy away from either the crazy or courageous.
Quite a bit expands on his unit and their search for Hamas’ tunnels and weapons hoards, especially. near hospitals and schools. He does not fail to express his own shortcomings and bouts of temper, but that is why the book is so worthwhile. Well written, at times itty-bitty but that’s the point. War sucks. The bravery of those who shoulder the responsibility and act when their nation calls them too, is finely exampled in his telling.
I bought this after a piece from it was quoted in another book. Captain Elkana serves in the IDF in Gaza in the early parts of the conflict following Hamas’ attacks on October 7. His diary covers about 86 days at the start of Israel’s military move into Gaza and although he is not engaged in a great deal of direct ‘contact’, his telling is very much ‘warts and all’.
Any combat arms or combat support soldier or officer will relate to all he writes: the uncertainty and terror of combat (most of which was house-to-house or room-to-room in apartment blocks), examining one’s mortality, the pain due to the loss of friends and colleagues, the struggle with separation from family members back home, periods of intense activity and significant boredom, struggles against weather, food, water, sleep - or lack thereof, the environment, terrain and the deep-hearted desire to return Israeli hostages: alive or dead to their families back in Israel. Elkana does not shy away from either the crazy or courageous.
Quite a bit expands on his unit and their search for Hamas’ tunnels and weapons hoards, especially. near hospitals and schools. He does not fail to express his own shortcomings and bouts of temper, but that is why the book is so worthwhile. Well written, at times itty-bitty but that’s the point. War sucks. The bravery of those who shoulder the responsibility and act when their nation calls them too, is finely exampled in his telling.
May 22, 2025
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ A Gripping and Personal Account of Modern Warfare
Capt. Elkana (Kuno) Cohen’s OCT 7 offers a compelling first-person narrative of the harrowing events following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel. As a reserve commando officer, Cohen provides an unfiltered glimpse into the chaos, camaraderie, and resilience experienced by Israeli soldiers during this critical period.
The book stands out for its raw honesty and emotional depth. Cohen’s diary entries, penned amidst the turmoil, capture the visceral realities of war—the dust, the sweat, the brotherhood, and the haunting aftermath of each engagement. His reflections on the complexities of combat, including encounters with civilians and the moral dilemmas faced on the battlefield, add layers of nuance to the narrative.
However, the memoir’s intense focus on personal experiences may leave readers seeking a broader strategic context wanting more. While the detailed accounts of daily life in a war zone are immersive, a deeper exploration of the overarching military objectives and geopolitical implications could have enriched the narrative.
In conclusion, OCT 7 is a poignant and thought-provoking read that humanizes the soldiers behind the headlines. Cohen’s candid storytelling provides valuable insights into the personal toll of conflict, making it a recommended read for those interested in contemporary military history and personal narratives of war.
Capt. Elkana (Kuno) Cohen’s OCT 7 offers a compelling first-person narrative of the harrowing events following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel. As a reserve commando officer, Cohen provides an unfiltered glimpse into the chaos, camaraderie, and resilience experienced by Israeli soldiers during this critical period.
The book stands out for its raw honesty and emotional depth. Cohen’s diary entries, penned amidst the turmoil, capture the visceral realities of war—the dust, the sweat, the brotherhood, and the haunting aftermath of each engagement. His reflections on the complexities of combat, including encounters with civilians and the moral dilemmas faced on the battlefield, add layers of nuance to the narrative.
However, the memoir’s intense focus on personal experiences may leave readers seeking a broader strategic context wanting more. While the detailed accounts of daily life in a war zone are immersive, a deeper exploration of the overarching military objectives and geopolitical implications could have enriched the narrative.
In conclusion, OCT 7 is a poignant and thought-provoking read that humanizes the soldiers behind the headlines. Cohen’s candid storytelling provides valuable insights into the personal toll of conflict, making it a recommended read for those interested in contemporary military history and personal narratives of war.
February 4, 2025
This is the kind of book that pro-Palestinians will hate and pro-Israelis will adore. It presents the perspective of an Israeli commando officer on the war against Hamas, which naturally makes it more appealing to those who support Israel's actions in Gaza.
There were some interesting insights into the lives of soldiers during the war in Gaza. The book humanizes the events, offering personal anecdotes and behind-the-scenes details that help the reader understand the emotions, challenges and daily struggles of those on the ground.
However, overall, I found it quite uneventful and even boring. While the subject matter is intense, the book doesn’t always deliver a gripping narrative. The pacing feels slow at times and the storytelling lacks the kind of tension or depth that would make it truly compelling.
In the end, it's a book that will likely be read through the lens of one's political stance rather than for its literary qualities.
There were some interesting insights into the lives of soldiers during the war in Gaza. The book humanizes the events, offering personal anecdotes and behind-the-scenes details that help the reader understand the emotions, challenges and daily struggles of those on the ground.
However, overall, I found it quite uneventful and even boring. While the subject matter is intense, the book doesn’t always deliver a gripping narrative. The pacing feels slow at times and the storytelling lacks the kind of tension or depth that would make it truly compelling.
In the end, it's a book that will likely be read through the lens of one's political stance rather than for its literary qualities.
February 18, 2026
Tough read
October seventh is an important and horrible day in history that deserves to be remembered. I applaud the author of this book in his effort to document his part of the war. Having said that, I must say, that the actual writing is horrendous and makes this a difficult read.
October seventh is an important and horrible day in history that deserves to be remembered. I applaud the author of this book in his effort to document his part of the war. Having said that, I must say, that the actual writing is horrendous and makes this a difficult read.
August 2, 2026
It is such a privilege to live in Ra’anana and call this hero my neighbor. I’m so proud of what Ra’anana has done for our soldiers. What a beautiful way to share his experience. I really enjoyed reading it. Thank you for all you have done for us!
August 28, 2025
A short book, obviously and intentionally a diary, is 100% just that.
While giving a taste of an infantry soldier's point of view in the first three months of the 2023 war in Gaza, it is definitely not well written - between the grammar errors, the dry tone and (especially in the first half) lack of context, it's not very compelling.
It's dry in many places, uses terms that would be unfamiliar to people who've never served (or never served in infantry units) and while it once in a while deals with feelings and perceptions (these are the highlights), it is always laconic and terse.
While giving a taste of an infantry soldier's point of view in the first three months of the 2023 war in Gaza, it is definitely not well written - between the grammar errors, the dry tone and (especially in the first half) lack of context, it's not very compelling.
It's dry in many places, uses terms that would be unfamiliar to people who've never served (or never served in infantry units) and while it once in a while deals with feelings and perceptions (these are the highlights), it is always laconic and terse.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews