October 7 Stories
The Tank
Four young men. Four voices.A commander and his crew.
The deeper we go into these stories, the less October 7 feels like a date and the more it becomes a collection of individual moments of unimaginable human suffering.
This story was created using the documentary “The Tank: The Black Box Opens,” a Kan 11 special presented by Omri Assenheim and directed by Gilad Tokatly. The video layout and editing are my own.
There are moments when courage is measured not by victory, but by the decision to keep fighting when every hope is slipping away.
Inside this tank were four young men who refused to give up on one another. They fought with extraordinary bravery, endured the unimaginable, and stood together for as long as they could. Their voices reveal not only the chaos of battle, but also the loyalty, friendship, and unwavering determination that defined them.
This is the story of courage under impossible circumstances. Of brothers who never stopped fighting.
May we always remember their bravery, their sacrifice, and the bond that terror, separation, and loss could never erase.
Know Each Name. Each Face. Each Life Story.
01 / The Image
The Burning Tank
Inside one of the defining images of October 7 were four young men fighting to survive.
There are images that become part of a nation’s memory.
The burning tank near the Gaza border is one of them.
On the morning of October 7, 2023, images of a tank engulfed in flames, surrounded and climbed upon by terrorists, began circulating around the world.
It would become one of the most haunting images of that day.
But inside that image were four young men.
- Captain Omer Neutra.
- Sergeant Shaked Dahan.
- Sergeant Oz Daniel.
- Sergeant Nimrod Cohen.
And before there was an image, there were voices.
Their voices.
Captured inside the tank during the final minutes they were together as a crew.
This is the story behind the burning tank.
The Documentary
Part One
Part Two
02 / Inside the Tank
The Story Behind the Burning Tank
On the morning of October 7, Captain Omer Neutra commanded Tank 3 at the small “White House” outpost between Kibbutz Nirim and Kibbutz Nir Oz.
Shortly after 6:30 a.m., reports began coming over the radio.
People were crossing the border fence.
Then more.
And more.
Israel was under a massive surprise attack.
Omer and his crew were among the only armored forces in the sector. They were ordered towards the fence to confront the terrorists pouring into Israel.
At first, the young soldiers trusted the machine surrounding them.
Inside a tank, Nimrod remembers believing, nothing can happen to me.
They were ready to fight.
But almost immediately, the tank began failing them.
Warning lights appeared. The transmission malfunctioned. The tank struggled to accelerate. Systems began failing.
Then the other tank in their force was struck by an anti-tank missile.
Omer wanted to reach his fellow soldiers.
His own tank could barely move.
And then came the explosion.
A powerful explosive device detonated beside the tank.
Smoke swallowed the interior.
The tank stopped.
Shaked was wounded.
From that moment, the recording preserved inside the tank becomes something almost unbearable to hear.
It is no longer simply the sound of soldiers in battle.
It is the sound of four young men desperately trying to keep one another alive.
“Shaked, are you with us?”
Again.
“Shaked, are you with us?”
Smoke fills the tank.
They can barely breathe.
They pull air through filtration hoses while trying to locate the source of Shaked’s bleeding and move him from the driver’s compartment.
Outside, the attack continues.
Explosions.
Anti-tank fire.
Gunfire.
Then they begin hearing people above them.
The terrorists are on the tank.
Omer repeatedly calls for help.
“My tank isn’t moving. It isn’t moving.
We are trapped inside.”
No rescue reaches them.
The engine will not start.
Then the turret stops turning.
One by one, every layer of protection disappears.
The machine that was supposed to keep them alive has become a burning steel trap.
Shaked is unconscious.
Oz can barely breathe.
Nimrod is struggling for air.
And Omer is still commanding.
Still trying to save his men.
Still calling for reinforcements.
Still fighting.
Until there is only one possibility left.
They have to open the hatches.
Outside are the terrorists surrounding them.
Inside are the smoke and fire that will kill them if they remain.
Nimrod remembers realizing that his life was no longer in his own hands.
Yet when he believed these might be his final moments, something extraordinary occupied his thoughts.
Not himself.
His crew.
Was this the moment he was saying goodbye to them?
At 7:26 a.m., less than an hour after the attack began, Omer Neutra’s final words were heard over the radio.
Moments later, the soldiers were pulled from the tank.
Nimrod saw Omer lying on its hull.
He looked into his commander’s eyes and understood that he was looking at a young man somewhere between life and death.
His instinct was to go to him.
He never reached him.
Nimrod was kicked from the tank and beaten.
Nearby, he saw Oz lying on the ground as a terrorist fired repeatedly at him.
Shaked remained behind.
And Omer, already gravely wounded, continued to resist.
His family would later learn that even after being pulled from the protection of his tank, Omer tried to seize a grenade from one of his attackers.
Even then, he fought.
Nimrod was taken away.
As he was led towards Gaza, he managed to look behind him.
And there it was.
The tank.
Burning.
The image that would travel around the world.
But Nimrod knew what the world could not see.
He knew what had existed inside those flames only minutes earlier.
Four young men.
Four voices.
A commander and his crew.
Men calling one another by name.
Trying to breathe.
Trying to save one another.
Trying to survive.
The burning tank became a symbol of October 7.
But behind every symbol are human beings.
Behind every photograph is a life.
Behind every name is an entire world.
The tank’s “black box” preserved their voices.
It is now our responsibility to preserve something even greater:
Their names.
Their faces.
Their lives.
Who they were before the world knew them through a burning tank.
- Captain Omer Neutra.
- Sergeant Shaked Dahan.
- Sergeant Oz Daniel.
- Sergeant Nimrod Cohen.
Know Each Name. Each Face. Each Life Story.