The story of Arie Itzik, a Magen David Adom volunteer from Kibbutz Nir Oz, is also the story of the Magen David Adom men and women who lived in the communities attacked on October 7.
That morning, they found themselves in the heart of the event, among their families, neighbors, and friends, attempting to provide treatment and save lives under impossible conditions while risking their own.
Arie has been volunteering for Magen David Adom for more than 45 years and served as an ambulance driver for many years. Simultaneously, he worked as a nurse at the kibbutz clinic until his retirement. The combination of these two roles made him a well-known figure in almost every home in Nir Oz. The people he was called to help were not anonymous patients; they were friends and neighbors, families he had known for years, and children he had watched grow up. He knew their illnesses, their medical backgrounds, and the individuals who required special attention. In moments of distress, he was one of the primary people they turned to.
Medical work under fire was not foreign to him either. Living in Nir Oz, near the Gaza Strip border, brought many emergencies over the years. Arie treated victims of road accidents on regional roads, joined military forces, treated soldiers and civilians during escalations and rocket and mortar fire, and trained for mass casualty responses. He grew accustomed to the fact that even when it is dangerous outside, if someone needs medical help, you go out to help. For example, on June 5, 2008, three mortar shells were fired at Nir Oz. One of them hit a workspace near the Nirlat factory. Amnon Rosenberg of blessed memory, a member of Kibbutz Nirim and a father of three, was killed, and four other workers were injured.
“We are crazy people who run toward the fire,” Arie said, recalling that event. “At the first mortar shell, I left the house; by the third, I was already at the factory.” According to him, the Magen David Adom uniform gave him a sense of security back then: “When you wear a Magen David Adom uniform, you feel as if the uniform is armor. Medical personnel are supposedly protected. All of that shattered on October 7.”
On Saturday, October 7, 2023, with the first sirens, Arie did what came naturally to him. He put on his Magen David Adom uniform and prepared to head out. Then he received a call from the Magen David Adom dispatch center. On the dispatch screens, the ambulance suddenly disappeared from Nir Oz. “I told them the ambulance was outside and that I was on my way to it,” he recalled. “Suddenly, I received a call from one of the kibbutz members. She said she had been shot by terrorists and was wounded, and that her husband had likely been murdered. I ran outside toward the ambulance, and on the way, I called the security coordinator and asked for cover from the rapid response team,” he said. However, to his astonishment, the security coordinator ordered him to return home immediately. Terrorists had fired a missile at the Nir Oz ambulance, and it was destroyed. Arie was forced to turn back. “It was a matter of minutes,” Arie said. “If I had reached the ambulance a few minutes earlier, they would have killed me, and if I had returned to my neighborhood a minute later, they would have spotted me too, and who knows what would have happened,” he said. Shortly thereafter, the terrorists reached his neighborhood as well. They went from house to house, murdering, kidnapping, torching, and looting.
The ambulance was out of commission, but Arie continued to do everything in his power. When he saw his elderly neighbor after terrorists had attacked her and stolen her jewelry, he rushed to provide first aid. With the few means at his disposal, he treated the wounded and tried to stop bleeding.
Meanwhile, his phone began filling up with messages from within the kibbutz. The WhatsApp group, which in normal times connected the community members, became a continuous stream of cries for help during those hours. Behind every message was a person Arie knew. He knew who needed medication, who had difficulty walking, which house had an elderly person, and who might need urgent care. But this time, he had no ambulance, no medical equipment, and no safe way to reach them.
Then the terrorists reached his house as well. Arie turned off the lights and the air conditioning, entered the safe room, and positioned himself in a corner, covered by a winter blanket. While the terrorists moved through the house and looted it, he tried not to make a sound and to remain undetected. Even as he hid from them, the phone remained in his hand. From inside the safe room, he continued to follow the messages and tried to guide and assist as much as he could.
“The house was desecrated,” he said. “They looted everything they could and destroyed what they couldn’t. Dozens of men, women, and children from Gaza were in the house for hours, eating, drinking, looting, and destroying,” Arie said.
When it became possible for him to leave, Arie went to the kibbutz command center and treated the wounded who were gathered there. The next day, his mission took on a different form. He and others went between the houses of Nir Oz and worked on identifying the murdered. They wrapped the bodies in sheets and moved them to a truck that arrived to evacuate them from the kibbutz. “I worked like a robot. I looked, identified, and wrote down the name,” he said.
Amidst all this, calls also came from parents looking for their children. Parents asked them to return to the houses, go through the yards, and check every place where a child might have managed to hide. Arie and his friends searched. They entered places that were accessible and tried to understand who had been rescued, who was missing, and who might still be in the kibbutz. Only later did the reality become clear: some of the children had been kidnapped to Gaza, and others were in burning houses that could not be entered.
Among the missing was Dolev Yehud, a Magen David Adom volunteer medic from Nir Oz. For months, his family and kibbutz members believed he had been kidnapped. Later, it was discovered that Dolev was murdered on the morning of October 7, after leaving his home to help others. Arie had known Dolev since he was a child and had attended school with his daughter. Later, he saw him become a Magen David Adom medic himself. “Dedication and professionalism characterized him, and many owe him their lives,” Arie said. “His amazing smile is etched in my heart, and I will never forget him.”
Another Magen David Adom volunteer from Nir Oz, Ronen Tommy Engel of blessed memory, was also murdered on October 7. His body was kidnapped to Gaza and returned to Israel only in October 2025.
Despite everything he did during those hours, one of the things that has stayed with Arie since then is the frustration of not being able to reach all the kibbutz members who called for help. During more than 45 years of volunteering, he participated in training and drills for mass casualty events, treated victims of road accidents and security incidents, and operated under rocket and mortar fire. He was used to receiving a call, getting into the ambulance, and heading out.
One out of every four people in Nir Oz was murdered or kidnapped. There were only five houses that the terrorists did not enter. The next day, Arie was evacuated with the grieving Nir Oz community to a hotel in Eilat. They left the kibbutz without knowing when they could return to their homes or what had become of many of their family members and friends. About three months later, Arie moved to a temporary apartment in Kiryat Gat. Although his house in Nir Oz was not burned, visits to it were difficult for him.
Even after life in Nir Oz came to a halt and the community was forced to leave its home, Arie did not stop being a Magen David Adom volunteer. The location changed, but the responsibility he felt toward the community members and the commitment to saving lives remained.
At the funerals of kibbutz members, Arie arrived with his friend, Magen David Adom volunteer Giora Zehavi, in Magen David Adom uniforms. They brought full medical equipment and set it up on-site so they could provide treatment if necessary.
Later, the two accompanied the funeral procession of Ronen Engel of blessed memory.
On February 26, 2025, Arie went out again in his Magen David Adom uniform, this time to accompany the funeral procession of Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas. They traveled in a Magen David Adom ambulance donated in memory of Ronen Engel, draped in the Nir Oz flag and accompanied by Magen David Adom motorcyclists.
“We also drove in the name of Dolev Yehud, a Magen David Adom medic, who was also murdered in Nir Oz,” Arie wrote afterward. Along the way, he saw the thousands who stood by the roadside, waving flags, praying, singing Hatikvah, and releasing orange balloons. “I drove and cried with the entire People of Israel,” he said.
In Kiryat Gat as well, Arie continued to look for ways to care for the people around him. He was involved in placing about 11 defibrillators, one in each building where community members lived. For him, a device hanging on the wall was not enough. It was necessary to ensure there would be people on-site who knew how to use it in a moment of truth. Together with the Magen David Adom team from Kiryat Gat, an instruction evening for operating the defibrillators was organized. Neighbors who were not part of the Nir Oz community were also invited to participate.
During the two rounds of fighting against Iran, during which all Magen David Adom ambulances were manned to allow for a rapid response in case of a missile strike, Arie chose to man a standby ambulance as well, as he had been accustomed to doing for so many years. “Fortunately, there were no missile strikes in the Kiryat Gat area,” he said. Although he risked his life more than once on October 7 and only a miracle separated his fate from that of the two Magen David Adom volunteers from Nir Oz who were murdered that day, Dolev Yehud of blessed memory and Ronen Tommy Engel of blessed memory, it is still difficult for Arie to come to terms with the reality forced upon him that day. “I carry a great sorrow with me from that terrible day,” Arie said. “I am used to running toward the fire, and this time I couldn’t reach everyone,” he said.
