When they finally reached the base, Neta’s mission was to “sterilise” the area, ensuring no terrorists remained inside. Seven of Neta’s friends from her battalion had already been killed.
On October 7, Zikim beach was the site of one of Hamas’s deadly attacks: terrorists stormed the beach and slaughtered 17 civilians – fishermen, teenagers, and a group who had held a beach party the previous night.
Some civilians fled to the Zikim base for shelter, but after realising that an army building could itself be a target, they moved on.
A subsequent internal military investigation into October 7 found that the Israel Defence Forces failed in their duty to protect civilians on Zikim Beach.
An Israeli army Merkava battle tank crosses a street while moving in a convoy along the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel on October 13, 2023. (Photo by MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP via Getty Images)AFP via Getty Images
By the time Neta arrived, the civilians there were either dead or had escaped, but terrorists still prowled the area. “There were a lot of terrorists around the base, hiding in the dunes and in the forests,” she recalled.
Neta did not sleep after the morning of October 7 until 8am the following day. But the fight lasted long after that. “There was a long period of terrorists attacking the area, usually at dawn or dusk, they would come in groups of three or four and attack the base once in a while.”
Hamas fighters had crossed the border on October 7 and continued to hide out for days. “We got a mission to try and search for any Hamas areas. Our battalion found a lot of terrorists with blood packages, water supply and food supply. They [Hamas] were trying to stay and keep on fighting for at least a month.”
An aerial view shows the compound of Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on November 7, 2023, amid battles between Israel and Hamas. (Photo by BASHAR TALEB/AFP via Getty Images)AFP via Getty Images
For Neta – who was trained to fight but had never before been involved in live combat before – the waiting was the most frightening part. She never knew when the base could be attacked and was constantly alert.
“The wait is scarier than the attack itself. Combat soldiers take actions very intuitively; you know what to do and you do it.
“But the period of time when you wait until something happens, and you know something is going to happen, that is the worst.” After several weeks protecting the Zikim base, Neta – who at the time of October 7 was still in commander training – completed her course and was posted to Gaza as part of a search unit.
Lieutenant N has chosen to remain in the army beyond the two-year requirement for Israeli women[Missing Credit]
On November 7, she entered the fortified Strip, which was teeming with Hamas fighters.
Her mission was to conduct search operations for anything linked to Hamas, such as ammunition, and to search women for weapons.
Neta explains that the deployment of female soldiers in Gaza was controversial but said the sceptics “quickly realised the benefits” when it became apparent what women could do inside the Strip that men could not.
Along with her comrades, she searched women in Gaza suspected of having ties to Hamas.
“Everyone suspected of being related to any terrorists need to be searched before they are moved on.
“Men were searching men, [but] because it is disrespectful in Arab culture for men to search women, we were searching women and then moving them on to the south of Gaza, where there was more civilian assistance.”
Neta never found weapons on the women she searched, though some of her colleagues did. She did, however, speak in Arabic with women in Gaza who expressed a desire for Hamas to be destroyed.
“There were some crying out for Hamas to be killed. There were a lot of civilians against Hamas, they asked us to take them down and leave Gaza.”
Everywhere Neta went in Gaza, she thought of the hostages, including her best friend’s cousin, who was taken captive. “I wished I could find someone, everyone does, or find a lead to a hostage.”
Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on November 10, 2023, amid ongoing battles between Israel and Hamas. Heavy fighting was raging near Al-Shifa hospital, with Israel saying it had killed dozens of militants and destroyed tunnels that are key to Hamas's capacity to fight. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)AFP via Getty Images
On her fifth day inside Gaza, Neta came under gunfire from Hamas fighters based inside al-Shifa Hospital.
Using a search device to detect underground activity, Neta was part of the unit that discovered movement in the tunnel network beneath the hospital. “We took it down [the network] and saw there was a whole base.”
In the days that followed, Hamas said they had taken hostages to the hospital for treatment, and the IDF recovered the bodies of Yehudit Weiss, 65, and Noa Marciano, 19, in structures near the hospital.
Neta recalled her experience of the challenging Gaza terrain, with Hamas operating from within civilian areas, including hospitals. During one search operation, she said she entered a civilian home where Hamas infrastructure was hidden in a child’s bedroom. “I saw a baby’s crib with a tunnel underneath,” she said.
“The IDF really tried to separate Hamas from the civilians in Gaza, but Hamas doesn’t let us have this separation, they take actions from civilian places,” she went on.
This is a side of the war that Neta does not think the rest of the world understands. “You feel like everyone is saying bad things about the actions we take as the military. I wish everyone could see this [baby crib with a tunnel underneath]; it is insane that we’re getting the blame for everything we do.”
The IDF has ordered a complete evacuation of Gaza City (Image: Getty)AFP via Getty Images
More recently, Neta has taken part in missions inside Israel itself. During the Iranian missile attack last June, she was part of a search team combing through the rubble of an apartment block in Bat Yam for survivors.
She recovered the body of Maria Peshkurova, 30, a Ukrainian woman who had moved to Israel so that her seven-year-old daughter Nastia could receive cancer treatment.
Maria’s body was found four days after the ballistic attack, which also killed Nastia; Nastia’s grandmother, Lena Pashkorova, 60; and her two maternal cousins, Konstantin Totbich, 9, and Ilya Pashkorov, 13.
“They weren’t in a protected space when it happened, and the family was killed,” Neta said.
Now in her fourth year of service – well beyond the two-year minimum for Israeli women – Neta reflects on how much she has changed since that morning on October 7, 2023.
“I have been through things that made me have a really different experience in life. I took civilian life for granted before this, you can’t take anything for granted.
“I have a different perspective on our country than before the war; it is special and someone needs to protect it.
“This is my chance to do what needs to be done.”
*Names have been changed
An Israeli soldier patrols Zikim Beach near the border with the Gaza Strip (Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images)Getty Images