After my daughter Sara was born, October 7 was no longer just a national tragedy. It became a father’s fear. A personal reflection on parenthood, love, and the unbearable reality faced by Israeli families that day—
This post is different from the usual posts on the “Sara and Me” blog. It deals with thoughts and fears that are extremely difficult for me to write about—and no less difficult to read about.
I struggled for a long time before writing it. I kept putting it off, again and again, but not anymore. I can no longer run away from this task, no matter how painful and disturbing it may be.
This time, I want to share something that I believe is common to many parents living in Israel. Many of them will probably relate to these difficult thoughts in one way or another. At the same time, I doubt there are many people who experience them quite the same way I do.
I can only hope that putting these thoughts into words will help me cope with them, at least a little, because they have become harder and harder to carry, and honestly, I have grown tired of carrying them alone.
The Days Before the Disaster
Three days before the darkest day of all, I returned from Amsterdam.
It was the most enjoyable and exciting trip of my life, filled with unforgettable experiences that will stay with me forever. There is no need to go into details—what happens in Amsterdam stays in Amsterdam.
I knew it would probably be my last trip for quite some time. My surrogacy journey was already in its advanced stages, and I knew that once I became a father, I would no longer be able to travel the world—at least not until Sara was older and we could travel together.
So I made the most of every moment. I gathered every ounce of courage I had and did things that I seriously doubt I would have dared to do under any other circumstances.
When I landed back in Israel, it was during the Sukkot holiday, only a few days before Simchat Torah. I was still under the intoxicating spell of that trip when the weekend arrived. After it ended, I was supposed to return to work.
I hoped to use the little time I had left to enjoy all the things I loved and finish my vacation with a feeling of complete fulfillment.
Then, on Saturday morning, disaster struck.
The Day That Changed Israel
The nightmare every Israeli fears became an impossible reality.
Like everyone else, I needed time to process the scale of the tragedy and the pain. It was, after all, one of the darkest days in the long and tragedy-filled history of the Jewish people.
That cursed day of bloodshed changed Israel forever. It changed me as well.
We will never be the same people we were before.
The inhuman acts committed during that massacre became a historic national trauma.
Then Sara Was Born
My daughter Sara was born on October 11, 2025, about two years after the attack.
She was discharged from the maternity ward two days later, as hostages were returning home and President Donald Trump was visiting Israel and addressing the Knesset on the eve of Simchat Torah.
From the moment I became a father, the events of October 7 became deeply personal to me.
During that unprecedented massacre, babies were among the victims of those brutal attackers.
When I hold Sara in my arms, when I look at her, when I think about her, images of the horrors inflicted upon babies that day sometimes force their way into my mind. And I cannot handle those images.
Babies were murdered. Some were burned alive. Others were taken into hell itself and never came home alive.
Babies.
There Is Nowhere Left to Run
When the attack happened and the first reports began coming in from the Gaza border communities and the Nova music festival, my first instinct was to disconnect.
I simply could not process it. I could not watch the news. I practically disappeared from social media, and whenever someone near me started talking about it, I walked away.
I did not have the emotional strength to deal with it.
But now, my life has changed completely. Like Israel itself, I have become someone else.
I can no longer avoid the horror. There is nowhere left to run.
Nearly three years later, I still find myself confronting those monstrous images in my mind on an almost daily basis.
I am angrier now. I hate more than I used to. I am unable—and unwilling—to simply move on as though nothing happened.
The Thoughts That Won’t Let Go
How can anyone burn a baby?
What kind of human being does something like that?
Even wars are supposed to have rules. I am not even talking about honor. On October 7, there were no rules. There was certainly no honor.
As much as I wish otherwise, I cannot stop replaying those impossible scenarios in my mind.
What did those parents go through as those monsters broke through their front door?
How did they feel when they realized it was over and their baby was about to be murdered?
What goes through a father’s mind when his baby is kidnapped into Gaza?
How did a parent feel after watching their baby murdered before their eyes?
What went through a father’s mind as he watched his baby burn, powerless to save his child?
The sights, the screams, the blood, the smell.
There is no chance that anyone who witnessed such things and survived could ever be the same person again.
And honestly, can someone who lived through that even be called a survivor?
A Father’s Fear
I am an anxious parent who loves his only daughter more than anything else in the universe.
She is the very reason for my existence. She is the reason I breathe.
Although I do not live near the Gaza border, I still thank God that Sara was born after the massacre, at a time when Hamas had supposedly been defeated and disarmed.
When we left the maternity ward and drove home—my sister was driving us—we listened to the wonderful news about hostages returning home.
I will not lie. It was deeply moving.
But something cast a shadow over that joy. Sara was only two days old, and for the first time in my life, I was listening to those reports as a father. As happy as I was to hear that hostages were returning home, I could not stop thinking about the babies who had been kidnapped into Gaza—the babies who never came home.
Those kidnapped babies were murdered in Gaza.
Never Again
Anyone who harms a baby, encourages such acts, or even merely justifies them does not deserve a place within the human race. Such monsters should not exist among us, and certainly not just beyond our border.
Such horrors must never happen again. No parent should ever have to endure the unimaginable.
Since Sara was born, I can no longer think about October 7 only in terms of war, security, or politics. I think about it through the eyes of the parents. Through the eyes of people who were holding a baby in their arms that morning. Through a kind of love that cannot truly be explained in words.
And ever since then, I have been unable to look away.
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