Minutes before she was bound and bundled into the back of a jeep bound for Gaza, Agam Berger borrowed a phone from her friend, Cpl Shirat Yam Amar.
“Mum, they’re shooting at us. There are terrorists. Everyone’s crying, but I’m not afraid,” she said. Her family would have to wait 15 months before they next heard her voice.
Ms Berger, 20, the last Israeli military lookout still held by Hamas, was released on Thursday along with 29-year-old female civilian Arbel Yehud and 80-year-old Gadi Moses and five Thai nationals.
Cpl Amar was one of 15 female spotters to be killed when marauding Hamas militants ripped through Nahal Oz base on Oct 7, 2023.
Seven unarmed teenage female lookouts, who monitor surveillance footage for signs of suspicious activity, were taken hostage by the militants – most while still wearing their pyjamas.
Lookouts reported a build up of Hamas activity prior to the Oct 7 attacks
They included Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy, all 20, and Liri Albag, 19, who were paraded in military garb by Hamas fighters on Saturday before being released in exchange for 200 Palestinian prisoners as part of the ceasefire deal.
The other two Nahal Oz lookouts were Pvt Ori Megidish, now 20, who was rescued by Israeli troops three weeks after being taken hostage, and Cpl Noa Marciano, 19, who was killed in captivity and whose body was brought back to Israel from Gaza in November 2023.
There has been rising clamour from the Israeli public for answers as to why the lookouts’ warnings fell on deaf ears and how they were left sitting ducks at a base just a few hundred metres from the Gaza border.
Amit Yerushalmi, 22, a former lookout who served at the Nahal Oz base from December 2021 until about a week before the assault, said the lookouts had reported suspicious activity in Gaza in the months leading up to the attack.
Footage showing capture of Liri Albag, Karina Ariev, Agam Berger, Daniela Gilboa and Naama Levy at the Nahal Oz base
“All the time, they told us there’d be a raid,” she told the New York Times.
Spotters reported an increase of trucks filled with Hamas fighters prowling the border, running combat drills, sending up drones and conducting mock hostage-taking scenarios.
Gazan farmers and bird catchers were also monitored moving closer to the fence in a suspected attempt to gather intelligence.
Roni Lifshitz, a former lookout, said suspicious sightings would be flagged on a computer system, but she had “no idea” where the reports ended up.
“No one gave us an answer back about what we had reported and conveyed,” she told the BBC, adding: “Everyone saw us only as eyes, they don’t see a soldier.”
Protesters demanding the release of Agam Berger daubed their hands with fake blood – Matan Golan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
On the eve of the attack, the lookouts held a celebratory send-off for Staff Sgt Shahaf Nissani, 20, who was completing her mandatory service.
“She gave everyone gifts, she gave them all letters, she read out loud her parting words about her experience,” her sister, Sapir Nissani, told the Kan public radio, adding that her mother, Illana, had delivered food to the base for a Sabbath meal.
At 6.30am the next day, Illana received a phone call from her daughter, “confused and crying and shaking, with terrifying noises in the background of all the girls screaming” in which she said: “‘Mom, they’re shooting at us, there’s a terrorist invasion, I love you.’”
Staff Sgt Nissani then gave her phone to the girls who did not have theirs, allowing the lookouts to make last contact with loved ones as Hamas militants stormed their position.
Illana told the BBC that her daughter’s predictions of an imminent attack had fallen on deaf ears. “Why are we here if no one’s listening?” Illana recalled her daughter asking her, not long before she was murdered by Hamas.
Ashley Waxman-Bakshi, cousin of Agam Berger, holds up the last known image of her from Oct 7 – LaPresse / Alamy Stock Photo
Ms Berger, then 19, had arrived from basic training on Oct 6. “I sent her a video where we recorded our farewell blessing for her. The next day, during her first day as an observer at Nahal Oz, she was violently abducted,” her mother, Merav, told Israel Hayom.
A barrage of rockets began the day of carnage that would see 1,200 Israelis slaughtered and a further 250 dragged back to tunnels in Gaza.
Shai Ashram, also 19, was on duty when, amid the din of gunshots, she phoned her parents to say the base had been overrun and “there was going to be a really big event” – a warning which would prove to be her final act.
Families of the hostages light 138 candles, one for each person still being held hostage on the first night of Hanukkah in Tel Aviv – Simon Townsley
Military berets still sit on the dressing table in her bedroom, which her father, Dror, sometimes still circles in tears.
“My Shusha, I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you to help you, sorry I didn’t protect you from the murderers,” her mother, Sari, wrote on Facebook. “Rest in peace, my beautiful girl, send me strength so I can continue to live without losing my sanity. I love you and I miss you.”
In the operations room, Sgt Roni Eshel, 19, rapidly relayed codewords to alert her superiors to the attack, according to an audio recording released by the military.
“All stations, four people running to the fence, copy,” she said, repeating the order multiple times before saying: “All stations, explosion of ‘hourglass watch’ [the fence]” as militants blew up and stormed through the barrier.
Noa Marciano’s funeral in Modiin, Israel, just over a month after the attack in 2023 – AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg
Eyal Eshel said his daughter, who had been in the army for a year and two months, had repeatedly warned of Hamas surveillance.
“‘Dad, they’re studying us. They’re doing their homework. They know almost every corner of the fence itself,’” he recalled his daughter telling him.
Mr Eshel believes his daughter knew she would not make it out alive, for she would always sign off messages with five red heart emojis – one for each member of the family, including herself.
In her last message before the operations room was torched, she implored her family not to worry and left just four red hearts.
“Roni, I’m sorry. I failed. I failed in bringing you home,” Mr Eschel said at her funeral.
Returning to the operations room months later, the father of lookout Staff Sgt Yam Glass, 19, said: “My stomach was churning. This is where my daughter was burned to death.”
Lior Glass, after scanning the scorched room, was dismayed at the lack of proper shelter or fire extinguisher.
“They had no chance. They were deserted,” he said, adding: “I won’t let this go, I’ll keep digging, and those that should answer for what happened will.”
More than 50 soldiers were killed at the military base on the border with Gaza, 15 of them unarmed lookouts. The Israeli military has previously vowed to conduct a “thorough investigation into the events of Oct 7, including those in Nahal Oz and the circumstances preceding”.
Li-Yam Berger, Agam’s twin sister, said she was happy for the observers who had been released so far.
“We are very happy for them, and we’ll wait for our turn,” she told Israel Hayom. “I’m already imagining myself in Agam’s embrace.”
Finally, after 15 long months, Agam was handed to the Red Cross by Hamas at a ceremony in the heavily destroyed urban refugee camp of Jabaliya and taken out of Gaza.
Credit: IDF Spokesperson Unit
At a gathering in Tel Aviv, people cheered, clapped and whistled as they saw images of Agam being released on a TV screen, next to a large clock that’s counted the days the hostages have been in captivity.
Some held signs saying “Agam we’re waiting for you at home.”
The wait was soon over. In a video released by the IDF, she was seen being embraced by her family – reunited for the first time in 481 days.