End of September 2023 in the Gaza Envelope: Just Before the World Turned Upside Down

A personal confessional report by journalist Oded Shalom, returning three years later to a story he published in late September 2023 at Kibbutz Nahal Oz. The encounters with residents just days before October 7 are retrospectively described in light of their fates: Ilan Fiorentino was killed in battle, Yaniv Zohar and his family were murdered, and Amir Puterman sensed the impending explosion. The report combines journalistic documentation with reflection on the tragic irony of the period.

Three years after publishing a story about the routine life in the Gaza Envelope at the end of September 2023, journalist Oded Shalom returns to Kibbutz Nahal Oz to trace the fate of the people he interviewed then. The original article, published on September 29, 2023 under the title 'Fire Will Be Answered by Sun', dealt with Hamas protests along the fence, work in the carrot and potato fields near the border, and residents' fears of escalation. Now, in retrospect, the cruelty with which fates were intertwined becomes clear: Ilan Fiorentino, the kibbutz's security coordinator, was killed in a battle against terrorists outside his home on October 7. Yaniv Zohar, a press photographer they met by chance that morning, was murdered along with his wife Yasmin and their two daughters, Keshet and Techelet. The family's grandfather, Chaim Livneh, was also murdered. Their son Ariel, then 13, survived thanks to Fiorentino, who went out to search for him under fire and brought him to the safe room. Amir Puterman, the farmer interviewed in the carrot field, says he feared not the protests but what might follow them, and booked a vacation in Eilat to leave the kibbutz during the Sukkot holiday. 15 residents were murdered in Nahal Oz and eight were kidnapped. The report combines journalistic documentation with personal reflection on the tragic irony of the period preceding the massacre.