Crucible of war: How Oct. 7 changed the lives of lone soldiers and ‘olim’

On Oct. 7, a reservist soldier was at home in his small community in the South. He was awoken at 6:29 a.m., he remembers, by the sirens that were set off by Hamas rocket fire. 

“We took the kids to the safe room, and it felt different. We checked our phones and saw the videos of Hamas in Sderot,” he recounts.

The reservist, known as Y., because his name can’t be published, was one of tens of thousands who were awakened by the first Hamas volleys of rocket fire and the sirens sounding near Gaza and in southern Israel. Soon, millions would be under rocket fire. It is now known that Hamas fired almost 4,000 rockets on the first day of the war. 

The reservist received his call-up to return to his unit, which is usually tasked with operations in northern Israel. However, on that day he went to the Gaza border because of the emergency. 

“Our job was less to fight terrorists but rather to evacuate families. We were in Yachini and Ofakim, and we mostly got tasked with the southern areas from Kissufim south. We spent four days there, and then got shifted to different areas. We spent time up north, and then in the West Bank,” he recalls.

His story is like many others of those called up during the war. More than 300,000 received a Tzav 8, or call-up order. He is also one of many olim who served in the army. 

The IDF has a great diversity of soldiers from all over the country and around the world. These include immigrants and lone soldiers. For this article, several lone soldiers and olim discussed their stories with the Magazine.

How olim and lone soldiers had their lives changed by October 7

In March 2023, just six months before Oct. 7, he joined the Kfir infantry brigade, serving in its Shimshon Battalion.

When the war began, he was still in advanced training and was at home. He went to his base and was sent to the North, to the Lebanese border. At the time, Israel feared that Hezbollah might join in the war. After guarding the border, as fall turned to winter in the North and the weather became cold, the unit was sent to Khan Yunis. 

This was in December when the IDF entered Khan Yunis, a key city in southern Gaza that was also the hometown of then-Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. At the time, Gen. Dan Goldfus was commanding the 98th Division in the battle against Hamas in that city.

The Golanchik, as soldiers from Golani are called, was born in Canada to Israeli parents. He grew up in an Israeli environment. Later, his family moved to Florida. “I experienced a lot of antisemitism. I understood I wanted to be in the army, and I looked at gap years in Israel and was accepted to a gap year,” he recounts. 

When he was younger, he was in an ATV accident that led to one of his fingers being amputated. This lowered his military profile, impeding his path to becoming a combat soldier. However, he worked hard to get into the infantry and received an exemption.

“I had to pick which brigade I wanted to be in in November 2022, and I went to Golani. I completed my training as a lone soldier,” he recalls. He was posted to the 51st Battalion. “They were on the border of Gaza. I was in Kissufim for two and a half months before Oct. 7.

“On the weekend [of Simchat Torah], we were on base. At 6:30 a.m., there were sirens and alerts,” he says. The soldiers scrambled to fight. At the time, like most of those confronting Hamas on the Gaza border, it wasn’t known how large the attack was. 

Each unit fought its own small desperate battle. The platoon that S. served in lost eight soldiers, and two soldiers were lost in the team S. was a part of. 

“Soon we understood it was a bigger event than just a few missiles. We ended up in the kibbutz fighting from Saturday to Tuesday,” says S. “By Wednesday, we were back in Kissufim. And then we went to get ready for the Gaza war [ground operation]. I was there from November to February 2024.”

Reservists were trained in urban combat. Tanks by the hundreds were sent to collection points around Gaza. These included the tanks of the 188th and 7th armored brigades, which are part of the 36th Division. Golani is part of this division. 

The division was tasked with charging across Gaza, cutting off Gaza City from central Gaza, thus cutting the Gaza Strip into two. The ground operation would see this division eventually link up with the 162nd Division and the 401st Armored Brigade, which drove south into Gaza from near Zikim, moving along the coast.

The Golanchik recalls how he fought in various neighborhoods around Gaza City. They fought in Rimal, a relatively upscale neighborhood, and then in Zeitun near the Netzarim Corridor, which the 36th had cleared. They also fought around Shifa Hospital and in Shejaia. Shejaia is a neighborhood well known to Golani because it is where seven soldiers from the brigade fell in the 2014 Gaza War. It’s a dense urban neighborhood full of Hamas terrorists. Returning to defeat Hamas in this area was important, as important as it was for the brigade to recover from the losses of Oct. 7. 

S. went to drill sergeants’ school (known as kurs makim) during the war, and then went to fight in Khan Yunis and later in Rafah. “After that, I finished my position and did the officers’ course.”

Reservist Y., meanwhile, was also fighting in Gaza before being briefly released from the reserves in December 2023. He was home in January and February 2024 as the fighting in Gaza became less intense and the IDF shifted units around in the enclave. From February to May, he fought in central and northern Gaza. 

By April, the IDF was already withdrawing from many areas in Gaza, and by May the offensive in Rafah had begun. Between June and August, the reservist got called up again, but this time for a deployment in the West Bank. 

He went to an officers’ course. “Now I hope I’ll get back to life and I’ll be set to be released,” he says.

For the reservist, the hardest part of the war, he says, is that “You lose friends and see things you shouldn’t see; but the hardest part for me has been managing being close to a full-time soldier while also having a family of a wife and four kids.”

He says his wife has a harder job. “For me to go to reserve duty and be with my guys, it doesn’t matter what the mission is, I believe her being stuck at home with the kids and dealing with the emotional part and keeping everyone in line is much harder.”

He notes that he found out later that Hamas could have attacked his community on Oct. 7. “The hardest part was not knowing I’m going to war; the kids asked why I’m not staying home to protect them. I think dealing with that was not simple.”

Soldier A. says he has two years of service left and hasn’t decided what to do next. 

“It’s important to stay in the army. We need the army in the reality we live in. For now, I’m here as long as it is needed. I don’t know what the future holds. I am an officer in the army. I have those two years left,” he says.

For the Golani soldier, the hardest part of the war was to keep fighting and keep going after the battles of Oct. 7. “There were reasons to stop and want to take a break. But there was no stopping; you understand the mission, [and] there is a bigger mission. That’s the toughest part. Gaza is complex; it’s complex there,” he says.

“I think it’s hard to truly mentally prepare yourself for what we experienced, no matter how many TV shows or movies you watch, even those they say are the most realistic, such as Band of Brothers,” Y. says. “The first time you experience death or contact with the enemy in close range, there is nothing that can prepare you for the feeling of being in a building [when] a building nearby is hit by the air force and there is pressure and sparks and cracking and a boom – things you can’t be prepared for.”

He describes it as “unimaginable.” So much is happening at once. “You have bombs falling, and you have tanks and soldiers, and so much is going on. [But] even with all this going on, there is the quiet, which is most unexpected. Nothing is 24/7. Those are the hardest [moments].” 

The reservist is older than the other men and has had more time to think about this challenge. For S., who saw so much combat and was on the border on Oct. 7, he remembers that “the training prepares you very well for it, at least what I went through. You never know what’s going to happen. But it prepares you mentally and physically and gives you the right tools to deal with what happens in the real thing. You can never be ready in your mind, and you never know, but the training does help you a lot.” 

A. agrees. He talks about a sense of mission in Gaza and a sense of belonging among the soldiers. “The motivation is very high and also the friends you have. In so many attacks, you go to your friends and [speak to them], and that helps a lot.” He says he kept in his mind always a sense of “why am I here,” a drive and a mission. 

“The IDF represents how we must be prepared and train hard for what we face,” he says, and he teaches that to his soldiers now. “All the Israelis [going] there [Gaza] to fight is a reminder that our nation is strong.”

The reservist says that from a Jewish identity perspective, “I can say that I believe that this is one of the biggest events that will be written in history in the last many number of years.” As a grandson of Holocaust survivors, he says he grew up with the concept of “never again.” His ancestors were in Auschwitz and the Kindertransport, he says. He grew up with the understanding that “no one will protect us; we have to protect ourselves,” he says. Oct. 7 is a reminder.

“We can’t get too comfortable, but as a country it brought us together and showed the world, and this goes along with the Six Day War. We aren’t a weak people, and we will stand and fight and protect ourselves, and it was a driving force of identity for the country.” 

He notes that when the reservists were called up, many units got a turnout that exceeded the call-up, sometimes 150% of the soldiers they expected, leading to a driving force throughout the war. “I can lead soldiers as an officer out of love of country and idealism and Zionism.” 

Y. notes that there is before Oct. 7 and after Oct. 7. It is a break with the past. The country changed, and people changed. “I think it was a big wake-up call; it’s horrible what we have been through… it will bring out a lot of good.”

S. agrees. He says that no one will forget that day. “This changed the mindset in this country, in the army. It was a big turning point in how things worked, and I think it will push us forward in the next decades in a way that 9/11 was for the US. Oct. 7 is a day that pushes us forward, and we won’t forget.”

NEVERTHELESS, THE war has left its scars. 

S. feels that the IDF has taken seriously the issue of treating soldiers’ mental health. Y. agrees. “They have stepped up their mental and emotional health initiatives. I can say for reservists that every reserve unit that finishes deployment has a decompression period where they put you in a hotel for 24 to 48 hours and bring professionals onsite. 

“You do it as a group, and anyone who needs to speak at any point, they have that option available, as well as hotlines. 

He recalls how early in the war, if someone was in uniform, “You couldn’t walk two feet without getting socks and a shwarma thrown at you,” referring to the public’s support for the soldiers. He also says that many people came from abroad to help Israel, such as doctors and other volunteers. 

“I don’t think this is just an issue related to soldiers. The whole country has been through trauma, the whole country is suffering from PTSD. It can be wives worrying about husbands or kids.” 

He mentions the funeral for the Bibas family. Shiri Bibas and her two children, Ariel and Kfir, were killed in Gaza after being kidnapped on Oct. 7. Their father, Yarden, was released in a recent hostage deal. “We will go through some rough recovery years.”

For lone soldiers, the last year has been difficult. Y. says, “For me, in the past year and a half, the biggest challenges I’ve handled as a lone soldier is that a lot of family and friends in the US don’t have the same mentality or understanding of what we have been through. They are concerned and worried, but it’s not as well understood, and it leads to questions.” 

Y.’s hope? That reading stories like his will inspire more people to make aliyah.     <