"Suddenly I was back on 10/7, to those gunshots. Crying and helpless, I screamed alone in the car 'Itamar, Itamar'"
Tali Haddad, the teacher from Ofakim who saved wounded on October 7, including her son Itamar who was shot five times, tells her story three years later. She left teaching, was diagnosed with PTSD, and describes how a burst of gunfire during military training brought her back to that morning. Itamar is married and receiving treatment, and Tali finds solace in the tours she leads and the therapeutic garden she cultivated.
Tali Haddad, a teacher from Ofakim, became one of the recognizable figures of the October 7 massacre after entering and exiting combat zones to evacuate the wounded, including her son Itamar, a soldier who had completed an officers' course and was shot five times. Three years later, Tali left teaching after 22 years, was diagnosed with PTSD, and is being treated with medication. In an interview for the "Where Are They Now" project of ynet and Yedioth Ahronoth, she recounts the moment she saw Itamar wounded and thought she had lost him, and the drive to the hospital where she screamed at other wounded people to talk to him so he would stay awake. She speaks of the feeling of abandonment when a military force left Ofakim for Re'im, and of the civilians who fought alone, whom she calls "the partisans of the 21st century." Itamar is married and continues physical and mental therapy. Tali finds comfort in the tours she leads for groups and the therapeutic garden she cultivated, but admits the trauma is not behind her: a burst of gunfire during military training brought her back to that morning, and she finds herself crying in the kitchen uncontrollably.