October 7 · Personal story
Ada Sagi
Abducted
October 7, 2023
Abduction location
Her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz
Current outcome
Released alive · November 28, 2023
Released alive on November 28, 2023, during the temporary ceasefire deal.
01
Life before October 7
Ada Sagi was born in Tel Aviv in 1948 to parents who survived the Holocaust in Poland. At eighteen she moved to a kibbutz, drawn by its ideals of equality and shared life. She raised three children and worked as a teacher and headteacher. She learned Arabic to speak with Palestinian neighbors near Nir Oz, then taught it to other Israelis. A planned London trip for her 75th birthday followed a difficult year: her husband of 54 years had died of cancer, and she was recovering from hip surgery.
02
October 7
On October 7, Ada called her son Noam from home at 9:20 a.m. She said she heard Arabic voices outside and was entering the safe room; contact ended. Noam later saw footage from the family home online. When relatives and security forces reached it, Ada was gone. Her daughter Navit recalled an earlier call at 8:40: Ada mentioned rocket interceptions and a rumor of an attacker near the clinic. She had time to message a neighbor before the connection was lost. Blood and signs of a struggle left the family unsure whether she had been hurt or taken.
03
In captivity
Ada later recalled a birthday in captivity in Khan Younis. Without electricity, she sat on the fifth floor of an apartment building and cried, wondering what she was doing there. The apartment owner put a candle on the floor and sang to her in Arabic with the guards. Ada was allowed an hour of Israeli radio; she said this was how she learned what had happened in the kibbutzim and at the Nova festival. For an hour, the radio connected her to home while she still did not know what had happened to her family.
04
Return
Ada was released alive on November 28, 2023, during the temporary ceasefire deal, after 53 days in captivity. At home, she saw that her children and six grandchildren were safe. Ada called November 28 her “second birthday.” Her return ended captivity and brought her face to face with the destruction of her home and loss of her Nir Oz community.
05
After return
At a later meeting at a Holocaust survivors’ centre, Ada spoke about rebuilding without pretending life had returned to its old shape. She said she came back almost broken and lost home and community, but was hopeful again and believed people could recover. Teaching, peace activism and Arabic had helped her build connections with neighbors. After captivity, her words held both damage and hope: rehabilitation for everyone and the slow work of beginning again.