Surviving October 7: How a 13-Year-Old Girl Ran a Command Center Under Fire
Three years after surviving the October 7 massacre in Kibbutz Be'eri, 13-year-old Hadar Bachar and her father Avida have released harrowing recordings documenting how she coordinated emergency rescues and saved her father's life from inside a burning safe room.
On October 7, as terrorists set fire to their home in Kibbutz Be'eri, 13-year-old Hadar Bachar turned a dark, smoke-filled safe room into a makeshift command center. Wounded in the legs by shrapnel, she juggled three phones to coordinate rescue efforts while desperately trying to save her fatally wounded mother, Dana, and brother, Carmel, alongside her father, Avida.
Three years after the massacre, Hadar and her father have chosen to release the harrowing audio and video recordings from that 12-hour ordeal. Operating on pure survival instinct, Hadar applied a tourniquet, instructed her brother on how to manage his severe wounds, and maintained a continuous lifeline with emergency dispatchers as the room filled with smoke and fire.
Her father, Avida, who physically blocked the door before collapsing from smoke inhalation, credits his daughter's extraordinary composure with saving his life. Though Dana and Carmel did not survive, Hadar and Avida refused to leave Be'eri, rebuilding their lives in a new home on the other side of the kibbutz and embodying a fierce commitment to life and renewal.
