We can never truly inhabit a reality that is not our own. Friends return from Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, each carrying stories that seem impossible to grasp from the outside. You listen, you nod, but there is always a gap, an unbridgeable distance between what they lived and what you can imagine.
Still, there is a moral obligation to try, to listen, to acknowledge that their stories exist; here, I must admit my own failure, just as the IDF chain of command failed a little over two years ago: I never truly attempted to understand the world of female observers.
I heard fragments, passing mentions, though nothing that lodged itself deeply enough. Had their voices been taken seriously, many of the horrors that unfolded, above ground and below it, might never have occurred.
Captain Yael Segre, 26, speaks about Nahal Oz the way people speak about places that shaped them. She began her service there in 2018, choosing the Gaza border area deliberately.
“That’s where I wanted to be,” she says. “I understood the importance early on. It [being an Observer] wasn’t our first-choice placement, but once we realized what the job involved, we accepted it and grew into it.”
Her connection to the base was rooted in the daily rhythm more than in any formal description of duty. “We can never truly inhabit a reality that is not our own. Friends return from Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, each carrying stories that seem impossible to grasp from the outside. You listen, you nod, but there is always a gap, an unbridgeable distance between what they lived and what you can imagine.
“We’d see the families every day, and we felt responsible for them in a very direct way.” She does not dramatize this. She simply states it. “On October 7, we lost people we knew personally. That’s the truth of it.”
She speaks about life there in practical terms. The mix of sounds across the Gaza border. The children’s voices from the kibbutz. The constant pressure of the observation screens. “There was always something happening along the fence. Those were very active years. You didn’t have quiet shifts. Something always needed our undivided attention.”
Growing up in the heart of Jerusalem helped her adjust. “People elsewhere tell you Jerusalem is an emotionally heavy place to grow up in, but when you grow up there, you just live your life. So Nahal Oz never felt intimidated. What mattered was having a purpose and feeling it every day.”
Within the observation rooms, the soldiers formed their own internal world. “We spent so much time together and experienced so much that we simply became a family of dozens of sisters. You don’t choose that closeness; it happens because the work forces you to rely on each other.
“We were all in it together.”
After some time, Yael felt the need to take on more responsibility. “I wanted to be a commander. I wanted to understand more, contribute more.” She went through the courses, returned to the Nahal Oz as a commander, and eventually went to officers’ school.
When she came back once again, now an officer, she was responsible for as many as sixty soldiers and around ten miles of hostile border. “It sounds like a lot when you say it like that, but when you’re inside the job, it’s just what needs to be done.”
Her tone does not change when she talks about the pressure. She does not present it dramatically. “I function well under stress. Many of us do. Maybe it comes from wanting to prove ourselves. Maybe from the nature of the job. Either way, I felt that I was exactly where I needed to be. There’s no greater feeling.”
Later, she began a degree through the army to continue advancing within the corps. Segre took a short trip to Thailand before starting the academic year. That was when the war struck.
“I was in shock,” she says plainly, trying her best not to add gravity to her sentiments. “We had reported on the increase in Hamas training. The observers noticed it, and we passed the information up the chain of command.
What happened to those reports afterwards, I don’t know.” She pauses. “But no one thought Hamas could pull off something like this. Not the commanders, not the generals, and not us.”
She explains the technical side without embellishment. “There are backups for the cameras. There are different layers of defense.”
“The assumption in the system was that even if something malfunctioned, there were enough soldiers to stop any infiltration. But the truth is simple and evident to all those who were stationed on the border: we did not have the number of forces needed to prevent what happened that morning.
She flew back from Thailand immediately. Her partner returned to his unit among the Armored Corps; she returned to hers.
“I went straight to the Gaza Division headquarters. The job became understanding what had collapsed, what remained functioning, and what needed to be rebuilt. We haven’t gone back to our Nahal Oz outpost since.”
The mood in the division was a mix of physical movement and emotional numbness. “Everyone was working nonstop, but at the same time, trying to process what had happened. It took a long time before we could truly understand the scale of it.”
She mentions the people she served with. “Without them, I wouldn’t have managed. We supported each other, even in the middle of all the uncertainty.”
She chooses her words carefully when the conversation shifts to the failures. “I can’t describe what exactly happened inside Nahal Oz that day. And it’s not accurate to say the observers weren’t listened to. The reports were passed along. But the belief was that Hamas didn’t have the capacity. Honestly, I don’t think any of us imagined they could execute something at that level.”
The months after the attack changed the public perception of the observers’ role. “People understand the job differently now. Before, some saw it as a simple and routine position. After October 7, there was a shift. Everyone realized how central the observers are to the defense of the border and the people behind it.”
She says the newer recruits come in with a different awareness than those who served in calmer years. “They understand the responsibility from day one. They know what’s at stake and who they’re entrusted to protect.”
Despite the passing of time and the gradual de-escalation within the Gaza Strip, the work continues with the same intensity. “The war isn’t behind us, not for the observers. We’re still monitoring, still providing early warning, still carrying the same responsibilities. The headlines may move on, but our job doesn’t.”
When asked for a final message, she offers something as simple as it is true. “In difficult times and in good times, we simply have to support one another. That’s really the only way anything works here. When we stand together, we get through things we never thought we could.”