My Mom’s Final Words – A Daughter’s Story from Be’eri, Israel, with Nicole Carbone and Ido Swartz

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And then she said, I can hear them on the rooftop and I could hear them going around and I could hear the bombing and the shooting. I could hear it all the way through the safe room, through the phone. I could hear it in my ears the way they trying to break it. I was like, these moments that I’m hearing is them trying to break it. She was like, yes. And I was like,
Welcome everybody to the Covenant and Conflict podcast. We are honored today to be joined by our friends, ITO and Nicole from Israel. They have come all the way from the holy land to share their story with us. Viewer discretion. Advised we have our friends here, not just from Israel, but from a town called Beri, which is right on the border with Gaza. And as you can imagine, they have suffered tremendous loss in this community. And our heart today is to hear from Nicole, who was a member of this community, family was a member of this community. So if you’re discretion advised, if you’re listening or watching with children, I’m sure we’re going to be talking about some hard things. But I was just explaining to them, covenant and conflict. Conflict is hard. Sometimes we want to avoid conflict. You might want to skip this episode because it’s going to be hard, maybe hard to listen to. But we want to embrace it because this conflict like Israel to wrestle with God. We believe when we engage the conflict, that’s when we find intimacy with God and that’s when we can find the truth. And so I encourage you to keep listening and be prayerful. So thank you for being here with us.
Thank you for having us.
Thank you. So will you start and just tell us a little bit about yourself, Nicole, and where you’re from, how long you’ve been in Israel, and tell us a little bit about Ri.
Yeah. Well I was born and raised in Kibbutz Ri to an Australian mother who made Aliya with her family and to a Christian father who came as a volunteer to the kibbutz back in the eighties. The kibbutz is the most serene, wonderful place that you could ever imagine living in. I had the best childhood experience. Everything is so liberal, nature related, great values of sharing. It’s
Very communal, right?
Yes.
Everyone shares exactly
Your neighbors share dining room, we share cars, we share holidays, we share grief. And we’re just really big community and one big family united one. And during the army I was a combat soldier in a kaka unit, a unit that combines both genders fighting together males and females. After that, I was part of the emergency team response while living in the kibbutz for the past years, I wasn’t living in the kibbutz since I got married and moved out of the kibbutz. Yeah. And that’s me personally.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Anddo, you do a lot of work with Berry. Did you grow up there? Have you lived there or you just had a heart for that community?
I came to be just after the massacre to help. I came for my own anxiety. I was fear for my life. I had a fear for my kids’ life and I felt that I need to go and help. And I just went to the hotel where they were evacuated by the order of the government and start to do whatever needed to be done.
Yeah. Well Nicole, I know that your family, you said you left Berry when you got married, but your family was still there. I know it’s sure hard for you to talk about, but could you tell us about October 7th?
Yes. I
Know that we all know what October 7th is and what happened October 7th, but it’s different when it’s your family there and not just seeing something on the news. So can you tell us what do you remember at that day?
Of course,
What happened with your family?
Of course. Well, fortunately and unfortunately I wasn’t there that Saturday. If I was there, I would probably not be here with you guys right now. So I’m sort of grateful for that. But as a fighter, as a part of the emergency team response, it felt like it was the only time that I actually needed to be the kibbutz to protect the loved ones. And I wasn’t there. But I guess God has plans for me and this is why I wasn’t there. But throughout the day I was on the phone with my mother. It started, I mean all of my plans moved from Monday to Friday. So it happened to be the first weekend for the past two years that I wasn’t in the kibbutz. And so
You went back every weekend typically?
Yeah, exactly. It was my getaway. I used to go there. I used to enjoy there, be with my family, be in my house, be in the environment that I know and love so much where I grew up. And I remember saying to myself around Friday around 8:00 PM I cannot forget this feeling inside that I could not let it go, that I’m not there in the kibbutz. I didn’t know why and I was just saying to myself, Nicole, just let it go one week. You’re not going to be in the kibbutz. What’s the worst going to happen? And yeah, and this is what happened. But we woke up, I woke up at six 30 the rest of Israel pretty much with the alarms and everything, and I texted my mom and at first she said that everything is okay. We were used to waking up from alarms since
When you say alarm, you mean the red alert alarm?
Yes, exactly. For missiles
Usually mean missile rockets.
Yeah, that you have to go into the safe room and
Stay
There for at least 10 minutes.
So when you wake up, you probably think this is a somewhat regular experience.
Go
To your bomb shelter.
Exactly.
When did you realize it was not a typical red alert?
When my mother told me that she was outside the rest with her neighbors and they were just filming all these missiles and the iron dome taking them.
And there was this neighbor from the neighborhood just next to them, it’s really close one. And he said them go inside the houses, there’s terrorists coming on the motorcycle. And so they all went inside the safe rooms and we started getting all these messages in the kibbutz groups and applications and an app. And I was talking to her on the phone and I said to her, listen, whenever the missile’s going to just stop just a little bit, I’m going to drive down to the kibbutz, I’m going to pick you up and I’m going to get you out of there. And she said to me while she was in the safe room, she was looking out from the window and she saw a man in a black uniform with a black hat. And she described it to me, said, it’s okay, mom. It’s fairly the police by now taking control back in the kibbutz and do whatever they supposed to do nowadays. I understand it was a terrorist. There was no police, no army over there by that time. And she said that she can hear all these Arabic screaming, shooting around all these missiles, all these bombing. And I said to her, listen, if you hear someone trying to break in the house, give me a call so you won’t be by yourself. And as part of the emergency response, we practice it couple of times the infiltration of terrorists in the kibbutz, but we always practice it with, I don’t know, 16 terrorists, 20 tops. We had over 400 terrorists in the kibbutz
And kibbutz berry
Is like,
What? 1,012 hundred.
Before the massacre we used to be 1200 in a community. We lost 10% of our community and now we’re 1100.
So like half of the community, there’s a terrorist there. There 400 terrorists.
Yes, exactly. The odds really weren’t in our side.
And then she gave me a call around 1130 saying that she couldn’t hear someone trying to break in from the back door. And I said, okay, it’s lucky that you locked everything up and they’re probably going to try to enter the house won’t be able because you locked everything. So they’ll just go to the next one, see if they can enter. Both of us was so sure that this is what’s going to happen, that they’re going to try to break in one succeed and just move on to the next one. Unfortunately, they were really into breaking that house.
They shot through the windows, they shot through the doors, they had electrical saw with them. They just got through the window, they tried to enter. And at some point she said she was really terrified, but she was so brave. She was such a hero. She really tried not to let me know and hear how terrified she was. She tried to be really brave. But I know my mother, she was everything to me. She used to be my best friend, my roommate, my mother, sometimes I was her mother. So it was a wonderful relationship with the two of us. So I knew every mimic of her. And then she said, I can hear them on the rooftop and I could hear them going around and I could hear the bombing and the shooting. I could hear it all the way through the safe room, through the phone.
I could hear it in my ears the way they trying to break in. I was like, these bombings that I’m hearing is them trying to break in. She was like, yes. And I was like, oh no. And so after she said that she could hear them really going around the safe room, she said, listen, I don’t hear them trying to break in anymore. So either they left or they’re already inside. And I said to her, they probably left for you to hear shooting, yelling, whatever it is. So as long as you don’t hear them trying to break in, it’s a good sign.
And then in a minute she became really quiet and she said in a whisper. Well, at first she said this, this is the moment I think we both realize. It says, my ray of son, my beautiful daughter, I love you. And this is something that she never said to me before that way. So the minute she said that, I think we both understood that it’s not going to end up the way we thought it would end up. And we shared a goodbyes and after two minutes she became really quiet and she said, they’re here for me. I’m going to hang up the phone now. I didn’t even understand what she was saying. And she hung up the phone. After that, the terrace just broke the door. My bedroom’s door, the safe rooms door was not closed properly because it was sort of broken. And during the weekends that I slept over there, I couldn’t even close up the door.
So for sure my mother won’t be able to do that. And so six terrorists enter, they shot her twice in the back and that was the end of it. At first with us, she was a hostage because we saw all these videos of them kidnapping people from my community kibbutz. I was stuck in Yavneh and I saw I’m getting all these videos and I recognized the streets, the people, and I cannot believe what my eyes are seeing all these terrorists around my house in my kibbutz with my community. And it was really unimaginable what happened over there that Saturday. And for the first four days we thought she was a hostage. So we connected the Australian embassy and we were looking for her until Wednesday. They called us to let us know that they have found her and she was dead in the past. After a couple of days I managed to find the guy that was there to collect the bodies so I could see some pictures and understand pretty much what happened over there with her. So yeah, it was really terrible.
I’m so
Sorry. Thank you for that. So sorry. Thank you,
Man. So about 25 people were taking hostage from Berry, is that right? More?
More.
51 people were taken hostage from Barry that day
10 are still over there. Only three might be alive. The rest of them we know for sure they have been murdered
And 110,
101 people are still at Gaza.
Yeah, I’m sorry. I was going to say how many people were murdered from Berry?
102 individuals were met from Berry community,
Which is about 10% of the whole community.
But you should understand it’s not our community, it’s all the kibbutz him around. We grow up in the school together. We know everybody from me personally. I lost over 130 people that I know personally
Because all the different Cabos that are right up on the border, you guys all go to the
Same places. Yeah, my language teacher was hostage. Another friend from my class used to be a hostage. Some friends of mine from my class have been murdered in the kibbutz like real far from us, but it was all over and losing 130 people that you know can’t process it, you cannot process it. A human mind and soul cannot contain this terrible stuff after us cherishing life and valuing life so hard and just going through it. It is. I’m so sorry. It’s insane. Thank you.
Yeah, I can’t
Imagine.
Yeah,
Don’t try to imagine.
Yeah. I mean what do you do after that? How
Being thankful and grateful for everything that I owe. I’m grateful for my daughter. Many people ask me, how is it possible for you to be stronger in faith after October 7th? And for them I tell them, listen, if I lose my faith now I have no reason to leave for if I believe that there’s no upper hand. That made everything happen exactly the way it happened. And it’s just like bad monsters did it because they wanted to. I don’t want to live in that world. So for me, I honestly believe that God directed everything. And even though it’s really sad and hard, I know that as a community we are strong, we are resilient, and we have the strength to go through it if I can. I’m just really glad that I have the strength to leverage it into good deeds and just if someone to get a hots closer and yeah.
Well, I don’t have any more questions. I don’t even know where to go from here, but I know that you’re here for a purpose. You’re here for a reason, and this is part of what you’re talking about is moving forward with hope. Our church, we just had a message all about hope and how if there’s no hope, what are we moving towards? Exactly. That’s despair, which is what you’re saying. Without that we move into despair. So what is your hope moving forward? And it doesn’t have to be one answer. What now? What are we looking forward to? What is the hope moving forward
To go back to live in the kibbutz, to see our community rebuilding itself with the help of all these amazing people from all over the world, no matter what you believe in, no matter what you from, people open up the heart, people feeling pain and grief and people want to be part of our rebuild. And it’s absolutely amazing. And I say this to people seeing this, that there are people on our side that there are still. Because for me, after experience it in a way, you sort of lose faith in humankind because you don’t understand why. How come people can do that? And when you see all these good people around you, it gives you back your faith and it helps you believe that eventually everything is going to be okay, even though it hurts a lot, you get the feeling that everything is going to be okay one day, not soon, but everything is going to be okay and just hope for it really hard.
Well, IDO, I’d love for you to share because you said you post October 7th, you went over to Barry wanting to help and now you’re here because maybe there’s a tangible way that we all can help and link arms and rebuild this community.
Thank you. First of all, I would like to thank all your audience for their prayers and support for Kibbutz Bury and for the state of Israel. We are really grateful for your support and we need it. I think that now the most important thing is to bring back home the hostages that are still left at Gaza Strip. And the first phase for healing for the families and for the communities is to have their beloved ones, the ones that are alive for rehabilitation process and the one that are, were murdered by the Hamas ISIS tourist to proper burial. This is the first thing. The second thing is in order for the Western negative to flourish, once again, we need a little push. We need your donation to help us rebuild the houses, the homes, the families, the spirit. And we cannot do it alone. We have 0.2% of the population in the ward and we need your help.
Yeah, we’re going to put a link in the show notes and a QR code on the screen. So please, if you’re feeling moved to give, we encourage you. This is a great way to give back. And we as Christians, as I was telling you, there’s a unbreakable friendship that we have with Israel and the Jewish people for so many reasons. We read the Hebrew scriptures and we read that God calls Israel his firstborn and the apple of his eye, his special treasure, his beloved. And if I serve the God of Israel, how can I not love what he loves? It’s simple equation. I love you God. Okay, well I love them. Okay then it’s like my wife, if I love my wife and she loves this person, well then I can’t hate that person
For sure
And say that I love her. You have a daughter. I can’t say Nicole, I love you. I don’t want to have anything to do with your daughter. That’s not going to work with you.
No,
For sure. And so we have Christians and some Christians might be confused. Why is there a center for Israel and a church? Why are you being so vocal about Israel? What about the Palestinians? And listen, we know that there’s innocent Palestinians of
Course
A part of this. And our heart breaks for innocent Palestinians as well. And it’s not that we’re choosing one group of people is a higher value of life. We want peace. Just like you want peace.
Exactly. Peace in
The Middle East. And we see that the Hamas terrorists and that is we want judgment to come on them to the judgment of the Lord. However, we love Israel and are so vocal about Israel because God’s so vocal about Israel. You can’t read the Hebrew scriptures and not get hit in the face with how much he loves his people. And in Christians we follow Jesus. Jesus was Yeshua, his people were the people of Israel,
Yeshua, redemption
And deliverance. And so we encourage our listeners to pray in Christian terms. Salvation is so much of what we talk about, but that same word is deliverance.
Yes,
Deliverance meaning free from oppression, free from captivity, free from bondage. So we’re not just praying this spiritual salvation that we can’t see. We’re talking about real physical deliverance as well as something spiritual. And so we encourage you to pray. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, the only city that God commands that we pray for. I love Dallas. I hope you guys have too.
Yeah, amazing. Dallas is amazing. It’s an amazing place.
But there’s no scripture about pray for the peace of Dallas. Sadly. There’s only one city we’re called to pray for and that’s Jerusalem. So as you guys have now been in the states, been around Christians, been around people that love Israel, people who don’t love Israel, I know you saw pro-Palestinian
Brothers
Protestors. So as you’ve been here, what would you say are the things that maybe we don’t understand? We’re not there, we’re not in the midst of it, we’re not in Israel. What would you want us to know that maybe we just don’t understand?
Well, my, my sentence about this kind of thing is that ignorance is more loud. So maybe you can hear them protesting. But if we’re quiet doesn’t mean that we’re not getting a job done. And
All
The good side of history, we choose to be on the good side of the history and we hope that all of us choose to be on the good side of the history because none of us in Israel, once war, if Israel put down their weapons today, all the Arab countries around us that surrounded us would kill us in one to two days, no more. If they put down the weapons today, we’re going to have such a wonderful piece. We can coexist. We used to coexist before until the radical started to take control of everything over there. And we just really want, even after what happened, my mother always taught me to believe in the good in people. No, who they are, where they from. Some people, everyone deep, deep down inside just want to raise their family, be happy, see them grow up, watch them get married, and fall in love and that’s it. That’s what we want. That’s what we want. And they can be great partners to us, but they really need to want it, otherwise it won’t happen. And we can’t force them into it. So we just need them to want it so we can do it together.
Yeah, I was just thinking a verse that came to my mind as you were saying that where Paul, who’s another Jewish man that we love in the church who says is for the best of your ability, live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity. And that’s exactly what you’re saying. Can’t we just live peacefully quiet lives and that’s our desire.
Exactly.
And I think that’s much of Israel and the Jewish people’s desire is to live in peace, live quiet lives, live in our community. And that’s what was taken from you. And that’s what I hear you guys trying to rebuild. And I know you were mentioning that rebuilding is how you win this war. It’s not
Just Absolutely, we’re not winning the war. If we are killing more Palestinians,
We
Are not winning the war. If we are conquering land, we are winning the war. If we achieve stability, the end of violence, and we are rebuild our lives and our homes that were demolished by the Hamas ISIS terrorist attack and now by the support of Hezbollah and Iran, and we need to stop those atrocities
Because now we’ve been experiencing it in Israel, but I don’t want to say it, but i’s all over. It’s in the States, it’s in Europe now, it’s against Jewish. But we just need to make sure that this violence never going to happen again against anyone because us as humankind, just be humble, be grateful, believe in whatever you feel like. Don’t force yourself on anyone else. And just like that, if everybody in the world will be just a little bit more humble and take a minute to just reflect themselves first, it’ll be such an amazing place to live in. And I just really pray for it and hope for it that people would understand and start living like that. You can be happy, you can be amazing. Just let people around you live their lives. You live your own and everybody can be happy together.
Yeah. I was on my phone for a second because we just had a group from Gateway go to Europe and they tracked the Holocaust. They started in Germany and then they went to, where was it? They went after that Germany. And then they ended in Poland. They went one other place. Prague. Prague. And then they ended in Poland in Auschwitz. And it was just learning the history of the Jewish people and the suffering and the Holocaust and learning how slippery the slope was and what you just said. And what you didn’t want to say is, yeah, they’re coming for Jewish people now, but Christians are next, America’s next. It’s Israel, the west is next,
The west is next. They take the US flag off and burn it and put the Palestinian
Fed. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. And they’ve done that in
Multiple states and they’ll continue doing that until the government stops them no matter where.
Yeah. Well, and it reminded me of this quote, which some of our friends at Gateway came back and this quote really, and I’m sure you’ve heard of it, but this is a pastor in Germany and he said, first they came for the communists and I did not speak out. I was not a communist. Then they came for the socialist and I did not speak out because I wasn’t a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionist and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. And then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. And then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me. So it’s this,
We must learn from the history of humankind. We must learn from what happened. And what happened in Europe was almost eight years ago, and we already forgotten, too many people forgotten the atrocity of World War ii. Too many people forgotten what United States had to be, had to be done in order to end this war in Japan in 1945. And even Germany, which is the administration, the government is pro-Israel, but it seems like the people already forgotten what their ancestor did just two generation ago. Yeah, the world is not a nice place.
Yeah,
Yeah. Well, before we wrap up, I just want to give space, if there’s anything that I don’t, you driving back saying, I wish I should have said that or I wish you would’ve asked this, is there anything that’s just on your heart that you just want to share? It could be practical, it could be philosophical, it could be spiritual, whatever you want to share. I just want to give space for that. I will go first.
Yeah, of course.
First of all, I would like you to come to build Berry, to bear witness to what happened there on October 7th. And I would like to invite you to be also part of the rebuilding, to pick up the avocado, to rebuild the houses, to clean the pavements. There is lots of work to be done and 2025 will be a year of rebuilding. Thank you.
Thank you.
And for me, just saying thank you for all these kind hearts that we are meeting all over the world and it’s just amazing to see beautiful souls around. And thank you for everybody for your prayers. And no matter what you believe in, no matter where you’re
From,
I believe that whenever someone being spiritual and hope for something, eventually it will happen. And this is all that matters, energy and souls and prayers and we have our habit and doing everything for us and controlling everything. So we just need to be grateful and be kind to each other. Be a great human being. And before you think and criticize someone else, just reflected you first. And just think how can you be a better person to yourself, to your neighbor,
To
The one that you at the beginning didn’t like so much prejudice? No. Just be a good person.
Well, thank you guys so much for
Thank you
Being a part of our podcast today. And we hope that it inspires all of us to continue to pray. Pray for the hostages, pray for the soldiers, pray for innocent lives, Israeli, Palestinian. God protects the innocent and that there’s an eradication of terrorism and a rebuilding of peace both for Burri and for Israel as a whole. I just was continually reminded when my boss, Nicholas Meister, who you guys might meet after this, made a video right after October 7th to our church, something he said that has stuck with me, which I feel with you guys. When someone comes against Israel, it’s like they’re coming against our family because we feel like we’re a apart. And that’s the true Christian theology that we’ve been grafted into this family. It’s like it’s our family now. We haven’t replaced that family that’s bad theology, that we’ve replaced this Israel and now we are God’s people. That’s terrible theology. What it is is that we’ve been brought into this and now we are like these adopted kids and is our older brother. And so anyone coming against Israel and the Jewish people, it’s like they’re coming against our family. And so that’s what we want our church to know and understand. We want Christians to know, understand. And that’s what we want our Jewish friends to understand is this hurts us because we see you guys as family. Thank you. So whatever we can do to help you guys, again, if you feel led to give, pray, whatever, we all want to take a step to help rebuild and to help bring peace. So thank you guys for coming on
And thank you so much for everything. Thank you.
Thank you.