“You don't go into a kibbutz alone,” says BJ Lai, the father of a family of five who survived the Oct. 7 massacre at Kibbutz Nir Oz. “I have too many thoughts.”
BJ, his wife Dorine, and their three children survived one of the worst attacks carried out by Hamas that day by hiding in a “safe room” and keeping the steel door closed. (The law did not allow the “safe room” door to be locked in case emergency responders needed to rescue the people inside.)
Before the day is over, more than 100 of the kibbutz's 400 residents will be killed or taken hostage by Gazans. This is the single worst impact that kibbutzim in the region will suffer in proportion to their population.
Joel B. Pollack/Breitbart News
Dorine said her family initially hid in a safe room when they heard rocket sirens from the barrage that preceded the Hamas invasion on the morning of October 7, 2023. They said their dog didn't like the safe room, so they stayed there. Outside.
But when the family heard gunshots outside, they became worried for the dogs, even though they knew they couldn't save them.
Soon terrorists entered the house and fired in all directions. BJ kept the door closed for four hours. At one point he literally stood on the steering wheel and propped himself up against the ceiling. Eleven hours later, the family finally showed up.
They presumed the dog was dead before it was returned home the next day.
But even though the dogs easily found their way home, the family found the journey much more difficult.
BJ, originally from Nepal, met Dorin while backpacking through India after his military service. She was one of the kibbutz members tasked with collecting the bodies of terrorist victims from their homes around the kibbutz. After that, he was unable to see properly for about two weeks. “It was dark, just dark,” he recalls.
When the family stopped by the house to collect their belongings before boarding the evacuation bus to Eilat, BJ and Dorine found there was little to save. Those that were not looted were shot by terrorists inside their homes.
After spending several months in a hotel in Eilat, the Rai family, along with many other Nir Oz families, moved to an apartment in the desert town of Kiryat Ghat to await repairs and reconstruction of the kibbutz. But BJ finds himself unable to work, overwhelmed by his memories and the thought of what the hostages in Gaza may be enduring. (Dozens of Nir Oz residents were kidnapped, more than any other kibbutz; many of those hostages are still in Gaza.)
Some evacuees wish to return to their hometowns. Some communities, like Nirim, next door to Nir Oz, are being rebuilt. However, BJ and Dorine don't expect to return.
If they were to return to kibbutz life, it would be somewhere else, far from Gaza.
Joel B. Pollack is a senior editor at Breitbart News. Breitbart News Sunday Sunday nights from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM ET (4:00 PM to 7:00 PM PT) on Sirius XM Patriot. he is the author of Agenda: What should President Trump do in his first 100 days?available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of Trumpian Virtues: Lessons and Legacy of the Donald Trump Presidencynow available on Audible. He is the recipient of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter @joelpolak.
