Their arrival, residents said, symbolized a moment of unity across ideological divides: religious, right‑wing settlers risking their lives to save a left‑leaning kibbutz community.
By Hezy Laing
On the morning of October 7th, 2023, Kibbutz Ein HaShlosha, located along the Gaza border, was among the first communities struck by Hamas’s Nukhba forces.
They breached the border fence and moved toward the Gaza‑envelope communities.
At 6:29 a.m., the first barrage of rockets struck the area, followed minutes later by the infiltration of armed squads on motorcycles and pickup trucks.
The kibbutz’s security coordinator, Rami Negbi, quickly mobilized the small standby squad, but they were outnumbered and under‑equipped; most of their weapons had been stored off‑site in recent months due to theft concerns, leaving them with only a fraction of their usual arsenal.
By 6:45 a.m., the first group of terrorists entered the kibbutz.
Residents sheltered in their safe rooms as gunmen moved between houses, firing into windows and attempting to break into reinforced rooms.
Several homes were set on fire, including that of Marcel Talia, who was killed when flames engulfed her shelter.
Negbi was killed in the early fighting, leaving the kibbutz without its trained commander.
For the next hour, Ein HaShlosha was effectively alone – the IDF nowhere to be seen.
Inside the kibbutz, residents described hearing Arabic shouting, gunfire, and explosions with no sign of military rescue.
It was during this vacuum that an unexpected group arrived: armed civilian settlers from the southern Hebron Hills, including members of the Talia Farm community.
According to survivor Meirav Cohen, who later spoke publicly on Israeli television, these civilians “came when there was no army” and “saved our lives.”
They were not soldiers. They were not on duty. They were not from the Gaza envelope, and they had no formal responsibility for the people of Ein HaShlosha.
Yet on the morning of October 7, as the scale of the attack became clear, a small group of settlers from the southern Hebron Hills made a decision that would define them: they got in their cars, armed themselves with whatever they had, and drove south — straight into the chaos.
These settlers had heard fragmented reports of the attacks and, without waiting for orders, drove south—over an hour’s journey—toward the Gaza envelope.
Most were from the Talia Farm and nearby hilltop communities, places often portrayed in the media only through the lens of conflict.
But the men who left that morning were motivated by something simpler and older: the instinct to run toward people who were in danger.
They had grown up in a culture where civilian response teams were part of daily life, where every adult knew that in a crisis, the first responders might be neighbors, not uniforms.
Among them was Bezalel Talia, a farmer and father, who had spent years dealing with security threats in the hills around his home.
He was not a commando, but he knew how to move under fire, how to coordinate a small group, how to stay calm when others could not.
When he and his companions reached Ein HaShlosha, they found a kibbutz under attack, its security chief dead, its residents trapped in burning homes, and no IDF forces yet inside the perimeter.
They entered Ein HaShlosha while terrorists were still present, engaging them in firefights and helping evacuate residents from burning homes. Their arrival created the first organized resistance inside the kibbutz since Negbi’s death.
Survivors later described the moment the settlers arrived as the first time they felt the balance shift.
The newcomers moved house to house, pulling families from shelters, engaging terrorists who were still roaming the paths, and guiding residents to safer areas.
They fought not as an organized militia but as a handful of civilians who refused to stand by.
Only around 1:00 p.m. did the first significant IDF reinforcements reach the area, including armored units and infantry from nearby bases.
By then, much of the immediate danger inside the kibbutz had been contained—not by the army, but by the combination of a few surviving local defenders and the unexpected intervention of civilian volunteers who had no formal obligation to be there.
The official casualty count—four residents killed—was tragic, but far lower than in neighboring communities.
Many survivors attribute this difference to the settlers’ arrival, a chapter largely absent from formal reports but deeply etched into the memories of those who lived through the attack.
By the end of the day, four Ein HaShlosha residents had been murdered, but the kibbutz avoided the mass slaughter seen elsewhere.
The voluntary arrival of armed civilians from nearby settlements played a decisive role in preventing a larger tragedy.
Meirav Cohen from Kibbutz Ein HaShlosha recently publicly thanked Bezalel Talia from Talia Farm in the southern Hebron Hills for saving her life on October 7th.
On the program Not What You Thought on Keshet 12, Cohen turned to Bezalel and told him, “Thank you. You saved my life.” He responded in surprise, “Me?” and she answered, “I’m from Ein HaShlosha.”
Bezalel modestly replied, “There were many others there. I was only part of it.”
Later, Cohen recounted, “On October 7th, the terrorists stood beneath my safe room and shouted. They terrified us – we saw death. Bezalel came to save us when there was no army. Masses of people from the settlements came to save us. I have tears in my eyes. This is a person who is the most different from me in the world, from a religious family, a true right-winger. It only shows how much we and they are the same. In the end, we are people who care deeply about this country.”
Their arrival, residents said, symbolized a moment of unity across ideological divides: religious, right‑wing settlers risking their lives to save a left‑leaning kibbutz community.
