Ofek Atun escaped the outdoor Nova rave with his girlfriend. They survived the assault on the bomb shelter in which they took refuge, before fleeing to nearby Kibbutz Alumim. The kibbutz's volunteer security squad mistook them for Hamas terrorists – and opened fire

A regular morning at Kibbutz Alumim. At the entrance to the kibbutz, one of the residents is weeding, not far from there, a house is being renovated. Cement, plaster, paint – whatever is needed to erase the recent past. Bullet holes still scar several walls, the door to the safe room is pierced five times. The rest of the house seems to have been taken from another place; everything is carefully arranged, as if life never came to a stop. As if it is still a safe shelter from the massacre of October 7.

For Ofek Atun, a resident of Holon in central Israel, it nearly was. Along with his partner Tamar, he escaped from the Nova music festival where Hamas terrorists massacred hundreds of partygoers, and managed to run to a bomb shelter near the kibbutz, which was also attacked. They survived that onslaught as well, finally coming to a house in the kibbutz, home to an elderly couple who were hiding in the safe room.

There, Ofek and Tamar called the police, and waited. When members of the kibbutz's community volunteer security squad came to help the elderly couple, one of them saw a man dressed in white in front of him, and thought he was a terrorist. He shot him. Ofek Atun was 24 years old when he died.

A Haaretz investigation traces Atun's path during his final few hours, as dozens of terrorists raided the small community which found itself defenseless, confused, trying with little strength to stand guard, to save residents in the fog of battle.

The investigation, which relies on interviews with Atun's family, his girlfriend and members of the kibbutz's staff and community security squad, along with security footage and recorded phone calls from the morning of October 7, paints a complex, still partial picture – one that does not give rest to Atun's grieving parents, Nitza and Haim. It's possible that what happened inside the house in Ofek's final moments will never be known.

At 7:51 in the morning Atun was already dead, one of about 40 people to be killed on the kibbutz grounds, according to official records. 23 of the dead were foreigners or security personnel. Not a single resident of the kibbutz was killed.

Just four hours earlier, Atun, Tamar and three other friends were driving towards the Re'im parking lot, before making their way to the festival. In retrospect, Tamar says that she didn't want to go at all, but the parties and the music, she says, were Ofek's life. "Kiko", as his parents called him, dreamed of becoming a musician. In his room in Holon, which is now a monument to him, he even built a home studio where he produced trance music, .

They were at the party for barely two and a half hours, when a passerby approached them in line to the bathroom and told them to look towards Gaza, where missiles were being fired in the direction of Israel. They hurried to collect their things and got into the car. Since they came late – they were able to leave first, avoiding the traffic jam that formed behind them. They were traveling north, with no navigation or mobile internet reception. As they travelled, the rocket fire followed them.

But then, when they thought they were already out of danger, they were stopped by a security vehicle of one of the nearby communities. The security personnel ordered them to turn back and drive towards Kibbutz Alumim. "They told them to make a u-turn towards death," says Nitza, Ofek's mother.

At the time, Ofek's parents didn't even know he was there. He told them that he was going to sleep at his girlfriend's home. But when the rocket alarms started blaring in the morning, along with more and more talk of the rave near the border with Gaza, they grew worried.

"Suddenly, Ofek pops into my head," Nitza says, and his father Haim continues: "I said, wait, wait, my son goes to these parties. I called many times and he didn't answer, I called Tamar and she was on hold. Then when she answered, she started talking in whispers."

Nitza, for her part, sent a text message, seemingly innocent, asking Tamar how they were. "We are hiding at a house, there are shots here," Tamar replied to the increasingly frightened Nitza. "I didn't understand what I was reading at all," she said. "Then I heard Haim, who was talking to her on the phone, shouting 'Who's dead, who's dead'."

Ofek died, Tamar was injured. Nitza went into a shock that would last two months.

##Ofek and Tamar did not know

Kibbutz Alumim is about 12 kilometers from the Re'im parking lot, on the west of Highway 232 – the side closer to the Gaza Strip. Three army outposts were supposed to protect it. Two of them, Nahal Oz and Paga, were hit on October 7 and failed to prevent the attack. Over time, additional military forces started arriving, but much of the burden fell on the 12-member community volunteer security squad, and three residents who joined it.

Facing them were dozens of terrorists who came in two waves of attacks from the Shujaiyeh neighborhood in Gaza. The kibbutz's security cameras captured the raid. At 7:01, the terrorists entered through the back gate. At 7:04, they reached the cowshed, shooting and throwing grenades at the foreign workers' quarters. At 7:08, they arrived at the clinic, which is in the center of the kibbutz. A minute later, they noticed a group of people who fled Nova, massacred them one by one, and at 7:14 started shooting at the nearby bomb shelter and throwing grenades into it.

Ofek and Tamar were in one corner of the shelter, along with a few dozen others who escaped from the party, and one policeman. At first, as can be seen and heard in the videos, they believed that it was IDF soldiers who were shooting, and that they would soon be rescued. However, they quickly realized that the fire was targeting them. "People screamed, called their parents, said their goodbyes," Tamar recalls. "Girls clung to me and asked me if they could hug me."

Both her and Ofek were slightly injured by shrapnel from one of the grenades. Ofek in the leg and Tamar in the back. Again, they thought that their lives had been saved.

After leaving the shelter, while most of the group ran east towards the nearby fields, Ofek and Tamar are seen in footage from the kibbutz's security cameras running towards the entrance to the kibbutz, passing through the yellow gate of the kibbutz which was wide open, and turning towards one of the first rows of houses.

On the way, they passed the body of one partygoer, who, like them, ran away from the rave, but was ultimately murdered by one of the terrorists. The below footage of the two, taken at 7:23 A.M., is the last time Ofek was seen alive. When the couple entered the kibbutz, they did not know that there were no longer terrorists there.

Israel's security establishment cannot give an unequivocal answer as to why the terrorist squads withdrew from the kibbutz. Four minutes earlier, the squad's commander was hit by gunfire in his upper body, possibly from Israeli soldiers or a police officer who was there. He was evacuated, and for one reason or another all the other terrorists left as well.

However, Ofek and Tamar were not aware of this. The couple, certain that their lives were at stake, started knocking on doors, house after house, to no avail. It is likely that all residents were inside their safe rooms, but in any case, who would open the door when, as far as they knew, terrorists were roaming inside the kibbutz?

At some point, Ofek decided to break into one of the houses through the window, and opened the door to Tamar from the inside. "We thought there was no one at home, it looked as if they were abroad," Tamar said. "We tried to enter the safe room, but it was locked."

The home belonged to an elderly couple who had indeed locked themselves in the safe room. Looking at the safe room's door from the inside, they saw how the handle was moving up and down, and heard Tamar telling Ofek in Hebrew, "Open it, open it."

The young couple were sure that the terrorists were on their tail, and the elderly couple thought that Ofek and Tamar were Hamas terrorists who could kill them at any moment. They then decided to call the community security squad for help.

All this time, Tamar and Ofek tried to hide. First, under the bed in the bedroom, then in the wardrobe, and finally in the shower. Ofek equipped himself with a kitchen knife to protect Tamar, who, fearing for their lives, decided to call the police. The time is 7:31.

Operator: Police, Tehila speaking.

Tamar: Listen, I'm at some kibbutz, I don't know where, there are terrorists here.

Operator: Where are you?

Tamar: I don't know.

Operator: Where are you? Where you are located?

Ofek: At a kibbutz.

Operator: What kibbutz is that? Hello? Stay with me please, in which community are you?

Ofek: Alumim.

Operator: Alumim. One second. No problem, okay, we're on our way. Tell me exactly what you saw, how many people [assailants] there are.

Ofek: Please come here.

Operator: Are you hiding?

Ofek: Yes, but I don't know what to do... Grenades.

Operator: Listen, a police car is on its way to you. Please stay calm. I don't know exactly how long it will take for them to arrive. Are they shooting at you right now?

Ofek: Yes.

Operator: Where exactly are you? Are you currently hiding?

Ofek: In a house, we broke in.

##The shooting of Ofek and the conflicting versions

The police operator managed to pinpoint the location of Ofek and Tamar, and asked them to remain calm. Neither she nor they knew that at those very moments, the community security squad was already outside the house, preparing to evacuate the elderly couple from it. As far as they were concerned, the couple were in danger, and needed to be rescued urgently.

In the background, they hear gunfire from the direction of Highway 232, and at least three other families at the kibbutz have alerted that terrorists were trying infiltrate their homes. The response team's commander says that he made sure that there were no terrorists around the house, and only then were the elderly couple evacuated through the safe room's window. According to him, the rescue was done quietly because the team believed that there were terrorists inside the house.

From this point, there are several versions of events that are very difficult to reconcile. What is known, based on conversations with several kibbutz members and the response team, is that a local soldier joined the team, and entered the safe room through the window armed with a pistol. At the same time, a security squad member provided cover from outside the house, resting the barrel of his rifle on the window sill. Then, the soldier opened the door of the safe room, behind which Ofek was hiding.

According to the response team member's version (who spoke with one of Ofek's family members about a week later), he heard a curse in Hebrew and fired several bullets at the door of the safe room. After that, he did not see the soldier nor Ofek. He says he understood from the soldier that there was a struggle, after which the soldier managed to free himself from Ofek's grip, which is when he shot him. Afterwords, the soldier went back out through the safe room window as the response team member continued providing cover.

The team commander corroborates this version. According to him, immediately after the elderly couple's evacuation, the soldier came to him and said that he was attacked from behind by a terrorist dressed in white, and in response shot him. According to him, 14 bullets were fired. According to another member of the team, he "emptied the magazine." Either way, many rounds were fired, and Ofek was killed instantly.

Tamar, however, who during the shooting was hiding in the shower with the glass door shut, tells a different version of events. She insists that she didn't hear any swearing, nor any struggle between the two. Only direct, short burst of fire, certainly not a whole magazine. "I know there was no struggle," she repeats. "I saw him dead, he didn't respond. I heard Hebrew from outside and I went to the door of the house."

On her way out, Tamar was also shot, directly in the stomach. The shooter was the team's commander. He says he saw what the soldier had reported to him – a terrorist wearing a white shirt. He later said that he "instinctively" fired once, before stopping.

He told the response team that no one should come near. He stressed to the kibbutz members that at that stage, like the rest of the country, they didn't know about the Nova rave massacre and the survivors looking for shelter at nearby communities.

When Tamar started speaking, they began to understand what had happened. "Help, help. Oh god, I'm Israeli, Tamar," she is heard saying in the real-time recording. "Terrorists, they came out, I'm wounded, I'm dead. That's it. Terrorists in front of my face, Ofek is dead, my boyfriend is dead, Ofek is dead."

The realization that the couple were Israeli surprised the team. One member said that they approached the house with the understanding that terrorists were inside, because shortly before that terrorists had attacked at other areas of the kibbutz gate.

Last Thursday, the team commander and several other kibbutz members met Tamar and members of the Atun family at the scene of the tragedy. The team's commander accepted responsibility for his actions. "It wasn't easy, but we did what we did, as we had to do," he told Tamar. "You have to take responsibility for both the good things and the bad things. I take responsibility for what I did, it was me who shot you."

Even after she was shot, Tamar had a few more moments of tension and anxiety. At around 12:00, the community security sqaud evacuated her to Soroka Hospital in Be'er Sheva. As the vehicle left the kibbutz, it was ambushed, and the medic sitting next to her was wounded in his hand. This time, Tamar was unhurt and arrived at the hospital safely. She was hospitalized for two and a half months. Today, she is still in the process of recovery, and it remains to be seen if and when it will end.

##Three Shiva Mourning Periods

Tamar and Ofek's incident did not mark the end of the day of battle at Alumim. Later, the kibbutz had to deal with additional infiltrations by terrorists, from three separate points. Seven Israeli fighting forces, led by the community security squad, took part in the fighting, and successfully repelled the terrorist squads. However, four Israelis were killed, two foreigners were kidnapped, and an Air Force helicopter was shot down.

A short time later, conclusions started being drawn. On the very same night, the kibbutz informed its members about what happened at that home. "A complex event", they say. The Atun family was told what transpired by members of the kibbutz while sitting shiva for Ofek. His parents had a hard time digesting it.

The kibbutz members returned on the 30th day of Ofek's death, but it was evident that the parents were still in shock. It wasn't until the end of November, when Ofek's father, Haim, came to Alumim to see where it all happened, that the story began to percolate.

It took some time for Tamar to realize that those who shot her and her loved one were members of the community security squad and not terrorists. "I went crazy," she says, "it's like having to digest it all over again." Nitza, Ofek's mother, says she sat shiva for her son three times: once when Tamar told her he had been killed, the second time five days later when his body was brought for burial, and the third time when she realized he had been accidentally shot by the security squad.

Even last Thursday, when the family members visited the kibbutz with Tamar and spoke with the security squad commander, doubts over Ofek's death did not dissipate. They are still convinced that he did not attack the soldier in the house. And yet, they don't want the soldier to be punished. "I don't blame him, I can understand the situation," Tamar says, but adds: "I'm angry that he doesn't come and talk, come tell us the truth."

Until today, the soldier hasn't contacted Tamar or Ofek's parents. On Thursday morning, Haim Atun decided to take the initiative and call him. It was a short, tense conversation. The soldier told Atun that he was "not yet ready to discuss the case". Haim was left without answers to difficult questions about his son's death. "We are restless," explains Nitza, "we will probably never rest, but at least we will know the truth." The soldier did not respond to Haaretz's inquiries.

The story of Ofek's final hours, in fact, was already told in public. A few weeks ago, at an evening celebrating the army reserves at a university in central Israel, a member of the kibbutz's community security squad – a professor at the university – took the stage. He told about everything that happened that Saturday in the kibbutz, including some of what happened in the home of the elderly couple.

"For some reason, [Ofek and Tamar] did not communicate with the [elderly couple] that was in the safe room nor with the security squad that asked them who they were, and this is the tragic result," he said, withtout elaborating further. The audience was stunned.

Nitza is also still stunned, struggling to process, but she recently came to a realization. Ofek, her "Kiko", was not murdered "by the hands of the wicked", as is written on his tombstone in the section of the Nova festival victims in the Holon cemetery. Now she wants to change the inscription. Father Haim is ambivalent. "He died because of them in the end," he says. But Nitza emphasizes: "Yes, but not by their hands."

The heavy grief is evident in every muscle in the faces of Haim and Nitza Atun as they sit in their home in Holon. They try to put together the pieces of the story they heard into a complete, or almost complete, narrative. Nitza has not entered Ofek's room even once since that Saturday; There are still cigarette butts in the ashtray.

On one of the walls is a picture of Ofek as a little boy, on the sheets it says "be happy." Both parents tattooed the portrait of their son on their arms – a happy young man, DJing, with two angel wings, and the nickname "Kiko" in English.

On one of his hands, Haim also tattooed a picture of Ofek while at a festival in Portugal; Shirtless, wearing sunglasses with a beaded necklace resting on his chest. The necklace is now in his room, given to them in a plastic bag by the police.

In response to the investigation, Kibbutz Alumim said that it "regrets and hurts over the chain of events that led to the tragic incident."

According to the kibbutz, "the community's volunteer security squad rescued the [elderly couple] from the window of the safe room and then entered the house, where they noticed the late Ofek charging towards them holding a knife in his hand, and unfortunately they shot him dead. Immediately after that, they searched the house and also shot Tamar when she tried to escape."

"On October 7, the community security squad fought bravely, killing dozens of terrorists who infiltrated the kibbutz. Some members of response team and kibbutz members were injured, and after eight hours of fighting when the army arrived – the terrorists were no longer in the kibbutz."

"We share in the grief of the Atun family. We hosted them in the kibbutz and traced the events of that tragic morning with them. We embrace them in our hearts, grieve the tragic event, and commit to remember the late Ofek forever."