‘My daughter could have stopped October 7’: the Nahal Oz spotters whose warnings were ignored

In the weeks leading up to the October 7 attack, Shirat Yam Amar knew something was wrong.

The 18-year-old soldier and the other young women in her all-female unit of observers, or tatzpitaniyot, at the Nahal Oz base were tasked with watching activity in Gaza for signs of militant activity.

As Hamas prepared to invade Israel, they had spotted signs that something was up. Members of the terror group could be seen practising an attack on a mock tank, using explosives and, seemingly, preparing for a raid on an observation post.

Speaking to the JC in London, Amar’s father, Moshe, said that his daughter had told him she believed something was coming.

“All the people [at Nahal Oz] were talking about this, that something would happen,” he said.

Over a year on from the catastrophic failures that allowed Hamas to break through Israel’s high-tech border fence and slaughter 1,200 people, Moshe and other tatzpitaniyot parents are demanding an investigation into how their daughters’ warnings were missed.

Along with 14 of her colleagues in the observation unit, Amar was killed when Nahal Oz was seized by Hamas.

“There should be a government inquiry,” Moshe said. “We want justice. We want to know what’s been happening and why it’s been happening.

“If you had listened to one girl then not one mother would cry. They could have stopped October 7 before it happened if they had listened to them.”

Amar had wanted to join the army as soon as possible, Moshe said. “She was one of the youngest. She really wanted to be in this unit. She said: ‘I want to enlist now.’ Her friends wanted to go together, but she wanted to go alone.”

Joining the tatzpitaniyot for her compulsory military service, she took on one of the Israeli army’s most cognitively draining jobs.

Amar and her fellow spotters were required to stare at a screen displaying footage of Gaza for nine hours at a time. If they became distracted and looked away, they risked being sent to prison as a punishment.

Veterans of the unit developed an intimate familiarity with the section of the strip they were tasked with watching.

“In my sector, I know every stone, every vehicle, shepherd, Hamas training camp, laborers, birdwatchers, trails and outposts,” Talia, a spotter, told Ha’aretz following October 7.

Noa, another member of the unit, told the BBC: "Our job is to protect all residents. We have a very hard job – you sit on shift and you are not allowed to squint or move your eyes even a little. You must always be focused.”

All female and all in their late teens and early 20s, Nahal Oz’s tatzpitaniyot often felt their warnings were ignored by their superiors, however.

“[We] are just as helpless as we were before the senior commanders – and certainly before the division and regional command,” Talia told Ha’aretz.

“Nobody really pays any attention to us. As far as they’re concerned, it’s ‘Sit at your screens’ and that’s it. They’d say: ‘You’re our eyes, not the head that needs to make decisions about the information.’”

Several women have since said that they witnessed suspicious activity in Gaza and raised it with their commanding officers in the run-up to October 7.

The mother of one told the BBC she remembers her daughter asking: "Why are we here if no-one's listening?"

On the evening of October 6, the spotters hosted a party at the base to celebrate those who were coming to the end of their military service.

The name they gave to the event, Moshe said, was, “the last disco”.

The next day, he received a call from Amar at 6.27am in the morning. “I could hear in the background,” he said, making the sound of explosions with his mouth.

“‘Abba, don’t worry. I am going to a good place. I will meet you on Thursday,’ she said. That’s all. Then she hung up the telephone.”

His daughter did not call him again, he believes, because she knew that if he were to hear that Hamas had attacked Nahal Oz he would have immediately driven to the base to risk his own life in an attempt to rescue her.

At 6.30, Hamas fighters stormed Israel's border fence after ten minutes of rocket attacks.

Located just half a mile from the Gaza boundary, it took only 30 minutes before the gunmen reached the door of Nahal Oz's Hamal, or war room.

Some tatzpitaniyot headed there, while others, including Amar, entered the base's bomb shelter, or migunit. In total, 15 observation soldiers were killed over the course of the day, while six others were kidnapped and taken into Gaza.

In a video shot by Hamas, one fighter can be seen addressing a group of spotters whose hands are tied and whose faces are pointed at the wall. “You dogs, we will step on you,” he says.

Amar was shot three times in the back and killed as she sheltered in the migunit, Moshe said. The shelter was left blackened and charred, with bone fragments later found among the ashes.

“I feel very sensitive, very emotional,” Moshe said, recalling his daughter’s death. “She had eyes like the sky, like the sun. She was a happy girl. She was shining. She did not need a reason to live.”

Now, Moshe said, he and the other bereaved parents would like Nahal Oz’s bomb shelter and war room to become a memorial to what took place on October 7.

When soldiers formally join the army, he said, there should be a ceremony at the site so the fate of its spotters is not forgotten.

Israeli military officials have said that the IDF should have paid attention to the tatzpitaniyot’s warnings.

"The signs were bubbling," retired Maj Gen Eitan Dangot told the BBC. "When you collect all the signs, you would make an earlier decision and do something to stop it. Unfortunately, this is something that was not done."

In October, President Isaac Herzog said an inquiry into what took place at Nahal Oz should be released as he visited the base.

“I hope deeply that the investigation will be published in a full, comprehensive fashion in order to shed light on what happened,” he said. “It will not change the reality, but it is good to know the truth so that we can learn lessons.”