On a hill overlooking the Gaza border neighborhood of Kibbutz Nahal Oz and the adjoining military base of the identical identify, family members of 16 fallen feminine lookout troopers have erected a memorial to commemorate their service on October 7.
The elevated location permits guests to gaze westward towards Gaza Metropolis and the Shejaiya neighborhood, the place the ruins are seen throughout the border.
Climbing as much as the lookout hill makes clear simply how important these troopers’ service was. From this vantage level, one can image the PASCAL system — the digital surveillance know-how they operated — and grasp their important contribution to Israel’s safety.
But right here, too, the painful hole is revealed: the intelligence the younger ladies relayed was ignored by senior command, resulting in the deadliest catastrophe in Israel’s historical past.
This memorial is certainly one of two new websites erected prior to now 12 months alone as Israel’s public areas are taking over a brand new focus — the commemoration of feminine troopers who fell in battle.
It’s a essential growth in a nation beset by terror assaults and wars, particularly after Hamas’s shock October 7, 2023, assault on the western Negev, when 1000’s of terrorists broke by way of the Gaza border and overran Israeli communities and armed forces bases. The shock strike led to a report variety of ladies killed in fight — each on the day of the bloodbath and within the battles that adopted.
A part of the memorial for the 16 feminine lookout troopers killed on October 7, 2023, close to the Nahal Oz outpost (Tal Schneider/The Occasions of Israel)
The Occasions of Israel visited this website in January 2025, simply days earlier than the discharge of 5 lookout officers who had been taken hostage by Hamas. A couple of weeks later, in mid-March, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu determined to not proceed with the second stage of ceasefire negotiations and ordered the IDF to renew preventing. Since then, the realm has been designated a closed navy zone, and makes an attempt to return have failed.
The memorial was a non-public initiative by family members of the fallen in partnership with the group Fields As an alternative of Fences and with the help of the KKL-JNF Jewish Nationwide Fund. The Israeli authorities, regardless of its many ministries — Heritage, Diaspora, Public Diplomacy, Negev and Galilee and extra — has not but taken duty for organizing state-run memorial initiatives.
Remnants of the Nahal Oz outpost management heart, September 2025 (Tal Schneider/The Occasions of Israel)
Entry into the charred operations room of the Nahal Oz base, the place most of the ladies had been killed, is now virtually unimaginable. Those that handle to get permission face a searing expertise. For that purpose, the lookout memorial has change into a essential cease for these wishing to have interaction with their legacy.
A fraught dialogue is now underway between bereaved dad and mom and the IDF over protect the reminiscence of the 54 lifeless from the Nahal Oz outpost.
Excursions of the bottom nonetheless present the command heart and positions precisely as they had been on October 7 — burned and blackened like coal. The fallen troops’ family members concern that sooner or later the military will determine to demolish the stays of the ability, which has change into a logo of failure.
As we speak, many guests come (solely with prior IDF approval) to the outpost, and even enter the strengthened shelter the place many feminine troopers had been murdered and 7 lookout officers had been kidnapped.
The bottom not features as a frontline put up, however indicators of the battle are in every single place: bullet holes, machine weapons and blast scars from RPG hearth. Preservation work is difficult, not least because of the deterioration of supplies and the danger of the asbestos roof collapsing.
Roni Park, an academic park arrange in reminiscence of Roni Eshel by her dad and mom in her hometown Tzur Yitzhak, September 2025. (Tal Schneider/The Occasions of Israel)
In the meantime, different commemoration initiatives have been launched. The dad and mom of Sgt. Roni Eshel, the primary lookout soldier from the city of Tzur Yitzhak to be killed, created an academic backyard in her reminiscence. The native council allotted a bit of the municipal park, the place youngsters play day by day.
Eshel’s dad and mom, Eyal and Sharon, obtained two unique PASCAL stations from the Protection Ministry, constructed a wood shelter and explanatory panels round them, and turned the place into an open classroom for younger individuals wishing to study Eshel and her fellow lookout troopers.
A memorial for Iron Dome troopers slain Oct. 7
A monument commemorating the fallen troopers of the Iron Dome unit, April 2025 (Israeli Air Drive)
Close to the cemetery of Kibbutz Re’im, a neighborhood near the Gaza border that was likewise overrun by Hamas, a monument has lately been erected in reminiscence of three troopers who helped function the Iron Dome missile protection system: Cpt. Sahar Saudyan and her troopers, Sgt. Nativ Kuzaro and Sgt. Binyamin Gavriel Yona.
On the morning of October 7, round 9:30 a.m., Saudyan left the Iron Dome battery in a navy car to ship extra interceptor missiles. Two of her troopers drove together with her. On Route 234, between Re’im and Urim, they had been ambushed by Hamas gunmen and shot lifeless.
The monument, known as “The Dome of Three,” was constructed on the initiative of the Air Protection Array and Battalion 947, through which the three served. The Israeli Air Drive suffered 20 casualties that day and within the weeks that adopted, most from its elite Shaldag commando unit and Unit 669, the air rescue drive. Saudyan and her two troopers had been the primary Iron Dome casualties.
Cpt. Sahar Saudyan who was killed on October 7, 2023. (IDF)
Daughters of Deborah
In Moreno Park, close to the cluster of museums within the metropolis of Petah Tikva and beside the deserted eating corridor of Kibbutz Givat HaShlosha, a brand new monument to feminine fighters was lately inaugurated: “Daughters of Deborah.”
On the heart of the location rises a four-meter-high (13-foot) bronze statue by sculptor Sam Phillip. It depicts two figures: one, a feminine fighter from 1948 holding an outdated wooden-stock rifle; the opposite, a soldier from October 7 carrying a flak vest, carrying a brief machine gun and carrying a helmet.
‘Daughters of Deborah,’ a monument for fallen feminine troopers in Petah Tikva, September 2025 (Dr Avishai Teicher/PikiWiki Israel)
The initiative got here from the World Zionist Group, the Petah Tikva municipality and the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation. It was conceived and constructed whereas the 5 kidnapped lookout troopers had been nonetheless in Hamas captivity. By the point of its June 2025 dedication, they’d returned residence, and a plaque was added honoring the fallen.
Yaakov Hagoel, chairman of the World Zionist Group, informed The Occasions of Israel that the organizers debated the place to position the monument: “We wished to set it in a big metropolis, in a distinguished location. In Petah Tikva, it stands close to the Scouts and Hashomer Hatzair youth actions and a number of other municipal museums — an space the place many youngsters collect.
“The commemoration of girls is vital to us within the Zionist Group,” he continued. “From the day it was based in Basel in 1897, the motion granted ladies the suitable to vote, many years earlier than many Western nations.”
“As we speak we see the ladies fighters, the fallen and the civilian heroines of the battle,” stated Hagoel. “We noticed nice bravery on October 7 and afterward, and the statue locations aspect by aspect a 1948 fighter and a contemporary soldier. That connection is vital to us.”
A historical past of heroism and heroines
Few monuments have been devoted to the heroism of girls in fight. In the course of the pre-state period and Israel’s early years, ladies took an energetic half within the underground militias and within the Haganah, the principle Jewish protection group, but their reminiscence was hardly preserved.
Exceptions embrace the memorial at Kibbutz Sdot Yam for Hannah Szenes, a Hungarian-born Jewish paratrooper who was captured and executed by the Nazis in World Battle II, and a stone within the Negev honoring Miriam Shachor, a Palmach fighter killed within the 1948 Battle of Independence.
Three different Palmach fighters — Tamar Baumgart, Leila Yosef and Miriam Osia, all killed at age 18 — weren’t commemorated till 68 years later, when a plaque was erected close to Kibbutz Dorot.
Even within the giant memorials like Tel Hai in northern Israel, Mishmar HaYarden within the Galilee, or the Monument to the Defenders of Negba within the south, ladies’s names seem alongside these of male fighters. In Nathan Rapoport’s huge 1953 statue at Negba, the sculptor even included the determine of a fight medic.
‘Yad La’isha HaLochemet’ (‘Monument to the Preventing Girl’), contained in the Shikmim Subject College close to the village of Nitzan, September 2025 (Tal Schneider/Occasions of Israel)
In truth, till latest years, just one website in Israel was totally devoted to feminine fighters: “Yad La’isha HaLochemet” (“Monument to the Preventing Girl”), inbuilt 1988 contained in the Shikmim Subject College close to the village of Nitzan, midway between Ashkelon and Ashdod.
It was no coincidence this was the one such website: from Israel’s founding till the early 2000s, ladies weren’t permitted to serve in fight roles within the Israel Protection Forces. The lone exception was Grasp Sgt. Keren Tendler, a helicopter mechanic killed within the 2006 Second Lebanon Battle.
A latest tour of the “Monument to the Preventing Girl” reveals how a lot additional there may be to go. A pale signal on the street to Nitzan factors towards the location, however on the gate to the Shikmim Subject College, the place the memorial is situated, there is no such thing as a point out of girls fighters. And in distinction to the energetic combatants on the battlefield seen in “Daughters of Deborah,” the “Monument to the Preventing Girl” depicts comfortable, rounded feminine figures.
When The Occasions of Israel visited one Friday morning, the gate was locked, and entry to the grounds — the place the monument features a 1998 sculpture by Shosh Heifetz surrounded by putting panorama — was not attainable. Because of this anybody wishing to see the location should schedule prematurely or be part of a faculty exercise.
The gate was locked. Intent on coming into, after strolling in circles, I discovered a gap within the fence close to the yellow gate of Nitzan. Pushing by way of the bushes, I stumbled on the monument for Mira Ben-Ari, a Palmach radio operator who was killed within the Battle of Nitzanim throughout the 1948 Battle of Independence.
The memorial stands on the grounds of the varsity, on the very spot the place she fell, not removed from the spectacular Nitzanim Palace, a big Ottoman-era property home.
Beside the monument, an indication bears the phrases “Hen Eim Hello” (“Although She Be a Mom”), since Ben-Ari, who was a younger mom, might have evacuated when the battle towards the Egyptian military started, however selected to stay and battle, and was killed within the battle. Her story was on the coronary heart of Avi Nesher’s 2021 movie “Image of Victory.”
The location additionally commemorates two different ladies killed within the battle: medic Shlomit Dorchin and Deborah Epstein.
On the heart of the monument is a big bronze sculpture depicting ladies and women with delicate, flowing options, draped in fluttering material. The comfortable aesthetic is way from the picture of Palmach fighters — or at this time’s feminine fight troopers — however it presents a special interpretation of their story.
For these capable of schedule a go to when the varsity is open, the location is price seeing not just for the sculpture but additionally for the broad, pale stone steps that join it to the Nitzanim Palace. In-built 1917 by a rich orchard proprietor, the palace has since been restored by way of a significant preservation effort.
The monument for Mira Ben-Ari, a Palmach radio operator who was killed within the Battle of Nitzanim throughout the 1948 Battle of Independence (Tal Schneider/The Occasions of Israel)
The palace was the final stronghold of Nitzanim’s defenders; greater than 100 of them, together with seven ladies, had been taken from there into Egyptian captivity.
Alongside the steps, the names of different ladies fighters from Israeli historical past are engraved: Sarah Aaronsohn of the World Battle I Nili underground spy community; Hannah Szenes; Esther Arditi, an IDF soldier who grew to become often known as the “Angel in White” for saving pilots from a burning airplane in 1954; Sarah Cizik, who fell at Tel Hai in 1920; and Bracha Fuld, killed in a 1946 firefight with British troopers in Tel Aviv.
The Palace in Nitzanim. (Shmuel Bar-Am)
As for why the location is closed to informal guests, the Society for the Safety of Nature in Israel, which manages the bottom, defined that that is a part of a coverage to safeguard heritage websites from vandalism. With out fences and restricted entry, they stated, personal guests generally harm the monuments.
