At 23, Captain Bar Zonshine fought for two and a half days near Kissufim, helping defend Israeli communities against Hamas terrorists, but the soldiers and civilians he could not save continue to haunt him.

By Hezy Laing

“In my story I’m the hero, but I’m also the failure.”

Those words, spoken by Captain Bar Zonshine three years after October 7, reveal the burden carried by a young commander whose actions helped defend communities along the Gaza border during one of the darkest days in Israeli history.

Zonshine was just 23 when Hamas launched its massive invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023. He commanded a tank company in the 77th Battalion of the 7th Armored Brigade, responsible for defending the Kissufim sector.

His position was the Mars outpost, located between Kibbutz Kissufim and Kibbutz Ein HaShlosha. At approximately 6:30 a.m., as the scale of the attack became clear, Southern Brigade Commander Colonel Asaf Hamami contacted him with an urgent order to respond to an incident near Nirim.

“We’re at war, do everything to get there,” Hamami told him over the radio.

It was the last time Zonshine would speak to his commander, who was killed fighting in Kibbutz Nirim later that morning.

One tank against an overwhelming invasion

Zonshine headed toward the fighting, encountering terrorists as he moved through the fields and roads surrounding the communities. Reports of additional infiltrations continued arriving, but the situation was changing faster than commanders could understand it.

The collapse of communications and the loss of senior officers left relatively junior commanders making decisions across an increasingly chaotic battlefield.

At one point, Zonshine contacted the brigade’s war room and asked for a simple instruction: “Just tell me where there is an infiltration.”

The answer was a list of 22 separate breach points along the border.

He had to decide where his tank could make the greatest difference, moving between threatened communities and confronting groups of terrorists attempting to advance into Israel.

For a period, his tank was the only operational tank defending a 19-kilometer stretch of the sector. He and his men continued fighting for two and a half days, engaging terrorists near Nirim, Ein HaShlosha, Kissufim and Magen.

The fighting was not without setbacks. His tank sustained damage, and the crew eventually had to make its way back toward the Mars outpost to obtain another vehicle.

According to an account published by the Israel Defense and Security Forum, Zonshine even caught a ride in the trunk of a Border Police vehicle before continuing on foot through an area filled with terrorists. He eventually reached the outpost, obtained another tank and returned to the fighting.

The extraordinary effort was not simply about destroying enemy forces. Every engagement was an attempt to prevent terrorists from reaching more Israeli homes and families.

The four soldiers of Tank 3

While Zonshine was fighting across the sector, another tragedy was unfolding involving four soldiers serving under his command.

Tank 3, commanded by Captain Omer Neutra, was stationed at the White House outpost between Kibbutz Nirim and Kibbutz Nir Oz.

Its crew consisted of Neutra, driver Sergeant Shaked Dahan, gunner Sergeant Nimrod Cohen and loader Sergeant Oz Daniel.

The tank came under attack by Hamas terrorists using rocket-propelled grenades and explosives. The attackers eventually overwhelmed the crew, and all four soldiers were taken into Gaza, although three had already been killed.

Neutra, Daniel and Dahan were murdered during the attack. Cohen was abducted alive and endured two years in captivity before being released on October 13, 2025.

Dahan’s body was recovered by Israeli forces in August 2024, while the remains of Neutra and Daniel were returned to Israel in November 2025.

Their story became one of the most haunting episodes of October 7, symbolized by footage of their burning tank surrounded by Hamas terrorists.

There is also a more personal record of the men who occupied that tank. Days before the massacre, volunteer Tsipora Halfon visited their outpost to distribute food and recorded the soldiers chatting, choosing snacks and enjoying an ordinary moment together.

In the footage, Neutra, Cohen and Daniel can be seen approaching Halfon, while Daniel poses for a photograph with a bottle of soda and several snacks in his arms. It is a reminder that before they became known through images of a burning tank, they were four young soldiers sharing the everyday experiences of military service.

The decision to fire

Later that morning, Zonshine encountered two pickup trucks speeding toward Gaza with people inside.

He suspected they might be carrying abducted Israeli soldiers, but in the confusion of the battle he could not establish exactly who was in the vehicles or what had happened to their passengers.

He faced an agonizing decision: allow the vehicles to continue toward Gaza or open fire in an attempt to stop them, knowing that hostages might be among those inside.

Zonshine chose to fire.

The decision illustrates the impossible choices facing commanders that morning. He had no reliable way to establish the identity or condition of the people in the vehicles, yet allowing the abduction to continue was also an unacceptable prospect.

The episode became one of the most difficult moments of his October 7 experience, adding another layer to the responsibility he continues to carry.

The kibbutz he could not reach

For Zonshine, the four soldiers of Tank 3 are not the only people he thinks about when remembering October 7.

There is also Kibbutz Nir Oz, whose residents he and his men did not reach in time.

In a later interview with Ynet, he explained that two images from that morning remain with him: the tank carrying his four soldiers and the kibbutz he could not protect.

“One is reaching the crew’s tank. The second is Nir Oz, which we did not enter and whose residents we did not reach in time,” he said.

During the fighting, he had seen terrorists arriving from the direction of Nir Oz but did not understand the full extent of what was happening inside the community.

Only afterward did he learn the scale of the massacre.

Zonshine also explained how he views the responsibility of a commander toward the civilians living in the communities he is assigned to defend.

“I look at the four-year-old riding his bicycle and I commit to protecting him. He looks at me and knows I’ll do everything I can to protect him.”

When asked whether he would have changed his priorities and gone to rescue his own soldiers before defending the kibbutzim, his answer was unequivocal.

“My first duty was to go to the kibbutzim. Even looking back, I would do the same thing. I would do everything to save the residents before myself.”

The burden of command

Zonshine’s story did not end when the fighting around Kissufim finally subsided.

Just over two weeks after October 7, his company returned to combat, despite having lost an entire platoon and with half the company having experienced the trauma of that day.

The soldiers went on to fight in Gaza for more than a year. Their missing comrades remained in their thoughts, and Zonshine said his men made every effort to pursue information that might help locate captives and missing soldiers.

He continued serving, later taking responsibility for training future armored corps officers. He was also wounded twice during the war, once waking up in intensive care.

“When you command people, you walk around with a nine-ton weight on your back, always,” he told Ynet.

He explained that even while recovering, his thoughts were focused on returning to his company.

His experiences also changed his plans for the future. Before October 7, he had considered studying mechanical engineering, traveling through Alaska and eventually leaving the military.

Instead, he remained committed to the IDF, later beginning law studies while continuing his military service.

A commander who refuses to forget

Some have compared Zonshine’s stand to that of Avigdor Kahalani, the legendary commander of the 77th Battalion who helped stop a massive Syrian armored assault during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

The circumstances were different, but both stories reflect the determination of tank commanders who found themselves confronting overwhelming enemy forces.

Zonshine, however, remains uncomfortable with the title of hero.

His assessment of October 7 is shaped not only by the fighting he survived but also by the civilians murdered, the soldiers lost and the communities that were left exposed.

“In the end, I did not accomplish my mission,” he told Ynet. “They penetrated our defenses. People were abducted in our sector. Residents were murdered. We failed, even with all the actions and all the heroism.”

He believes Israel must continue to remember October 7 as a warning rather than allow it to become another chapter in the country’s history.

“We owe it to those people who were abducted and murdered that this day remains with us and serves as a compass, so we make sure something like this never happens again in the State of Israel.”

For a commander who once imagined a future far from the battlefield, the events of that morning changed everything. His men fought for two and a half days to defend Israeli communities, and he has spent the years since carrying the weight of those they could not save.