"He said: 'Dad, they are here, they broke the door'": Head of Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council recalls moments of fear

For Uri Epstein, head of the Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council and a native of Kfar Aza, life in the kibbutz at the foot of the Gaza Strip was the realization of the Zionist dream. "The land of unlimited possibilities," he describes his childhood there in the 70s and 80s.

In an interview for the podcast "On the Path to Israel" hosted by Idan Tendler, against the backdrop of the shocking report published this week by the "October Council" organization about the situation in the Gaza envelope about 3 years after the massacre, Epstein returns to the morning of October 7 - the day the dream shattered into pieces and cut short the lives of five of his family members.

At 07:00 in the morning, when he realized something unusual was happening, his wife Ayelet went to his parents' house to help. "After a few minutes, she calls me and says: 'They murdered your mother. She is dead, there are terrorists here.'" In retrospect, it turned out that his wife was saved by a miracle, as she entered the house seconds after the terrorists moved to the neighboring house.

Epstein remained in the safe room with his 12-year-old daughter Alma, while the rest of his family was scattered. His eldest son Neta was in the youth neighborhood together with his fiancée Irene, and his middle daughter Ron was on a year of service in the Hermon.

08:45: "There is no army, I don't hear anyone"

Against the backdrop of reports about the absence of his brother-in-law, the late head of the Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council Ofir Libstein, Epstein went outside. Libstein, who was a medic, took a weapon from the armory and ran to fight, but fell in battle. "My nephew, Ofir's eldest son, and I found him. At first, I didn't even realize it was him," recalls Epstein.

As a former officer who served for 25 years in senior operational roles (including in special units, Aman, and the Operations Directorate), Epstein understood the magnitude of the failure. "It's a quarter to nine in the morning. I say to myself - this cannot be. We have been in the event since six-thirty, nine-thirty, and there is no army here. I don't see anyone and I don't hear anyone."

He began sending messages to his friends in the IDF top brass, including Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi (who was his direct commander in the past), and announced the death of Libstein in a desperate attempt to "shake the people."

11:30: The last message from Neta

Epstein returned to the safe room and continued to correspond with his son Neta, who was besieged in the youth neighborhood. "At 11:30 I write to him to stay in the safe room because the Air Force is going to attack. He answers me: 'Dad, they are here. They broke the door.' Six minutes later, at 11:36, Irene (Neta's fiancée) writes to me: 'He is dead. A fire started here, what to do?'"

At that terrible moment, Epstein understood that he had to function. "I understand now that I have a mission - to save Irene. I cannot save her physically, but at least keep her with hope so she won't feel alone in this chaos."

All those hours, Epstein tried to protect his 12-year-old daughter Alma from the bloody reality. "The body is held, adrenaline. My uncle is breaking down on the phone with cries of grief, and I go out of the safe room every time to hear messages." Until in the evening hours, Alma said to him a sentence that broke him: "Dad, you don't have to go out of the house every time. I hear everything."

"I failed to protect her from the truth," he describes with a feeling of stinging failure. He detailed to her the list of the murdered, but there a defining turning point arrived: "We are at the lowest point, without hope. And then I tell her: 'I don't know how to deal with this, but I promise you that we will live full and happy lives. I have a good reason to live - I have you, Ron, and Mom.' At once it became a switch in the head. I have a mission, they don't deserve for us to be living-dead."

The survival nightmare continued on Sunday as well. Epstein and his daughter were rescued under fire. On the way, a moment was recorded where his trust in the system finally cracked: soldiers refused to go out and rescue a single mother and a small child from the house opposite. "They tell me: 'Whoever cannot come to us, we cannot bring him.' This is the biggest shock I received," he recalls. Epstein went out himself under fire and rescued the neighboring family.

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"The breach of trust with the IDF is a strategic threat"

Despite the pain and the deep break, Epstein channeled the energy into public action and decided to run for the head of the Sha'ar HaNegev Council. "I am not doing this for those I lost, I am doing this for what I am not willing to lose," he explains.

As a council head, Epstein places a worrying mirror in front of the country's leadership and the army, and warns of an existential danger: "The army does not understand the magnitude of the public trust crisis that exists. The generation that was on October 7, like Herzi Halevi and Avi Rosenfeld, understood the real need for correction. Unfortunately, there are commanders in the army today who behave as if we are not even on October 6. We have never been in such a big breach of trust.

"In my eyes, this is strategic threat number one - more than Iran and more than Hezbollah. Because when public trust is broken, everything will collapse inside us. This is the reason people pay taxes, send children to the army, and choose to live near the border. The government and the army simply do not understand this."

"If we restore only what was - we failed"

Despite the sharp criticism, Epstein is leading a real revolution in the region. He talks about turning Sha'ar HaNegev into a "national laboratory for how the State of Israel should get back on track." As part of this concept, he broke the historical disconnect between the kibbutzim and the city of Sderot, and enlisted Mayor Alon Davidi for unprecedented cooperation. "I told him: it is very important to the residents of Sha'ar HaNegev that Sderot be strong. Let's set up a team that builds a shared future picture for the next decade."

He promotes "meaning economy" - a concept that encourages people to stay in the region not only because of livelihood, but because of the sense of mission and added value. "If we restore what was, we failed," he rules. "We need to build something much better. A high-tech park, a growing college, strong communities."

He draws the proof of the victory of the spirit precisely from the youth of Kfar Aza, the bleeding kibbutz that is still trying to find its way anew: "I check the recruitment data. The vast majority of recruits from Kfar Aza continue to go to combat units and quality roles. This gives me a lot of hope. Optimism is not a feeling, optimism is a work plan. It is the ability to aim for the future we want, and to see that people go with us."