October 7 · Personal story
Nili Margalit
Abducted
October 7, 2023
Abduction location
Kibbutz Nir Oz
Current outcome
Released alive · November 30, 2023
Nili was released alive and returned to Israel on 30 November 2023.
01
Life before
Nili Margalit lived in Kibbutz Nir Oz and worked as a nurse in Soroka Medical Center’s pediatric emergency department. She studied nursing at Ben-Gurion University and later joined the university’s nursing faculty as teaching staff. The Ministry of Health memorial identifies her as a nurse at Soroka; Ben-Gurion University describes her as a two-time graduate. Her work brought her into contact with patients from different communities, and she learned some Arabic while working at the hospital. She described helping and caring as central to her identity.
02
Abduction
On the morning of 7 October 2023, Nili was in the safe room of her home from about 6:30 a.m. Attackers broke into her house around 9:00, pulled her from bed while she was wearing pajamas and took her at gunpoint in a golf cart toward the Gaza border. Her father had been murdered in Nir Oz earlier that morning; she said she did not know this when she was taken. The Ministry of Health identifies her among Nir Oz residents abducted that day.
03
Captivity
Margalit said captors took her through Khan Younis into an underground tunnel, where she remained during her captivity. She was held with older residents from Nir Oz and people from nearby Nirim, including her parents’ friends and the father of one of her close friends. She described the tunnel as about 40 meters underground, with little oxygen and difficulty breathing. Some hostages had wounds and an older person had asthma. As a nurse, she felt responsible for helping them. She used some Arabic from her work at Soroka to communicate with captors, advocated for medicine, and kept track of which patients needed which drugs. She described this care as a duty to people from her community.
04
Return
Margalit was released from captivity on 30 November 2023 during the first weeklong hostage release arrangement. The Ministry of Health memorial records that date, and the Ben-Gurion University account identifies her as a released hostage. She returned alive and later spoke publicly about the other hostages and her caregiving in captivity. Friends and neighbors remained in Gaza after her release.
05
Aftermath
In its 26 July 2025 account, Ben-Gurion University described Margalit’s Colorado trip with its president for public talks about 7 October and captivity. It said she campaigned for the return of hostages, including her father Eliyahu, murdered on 7 October, whose body was then still in Gaza. The university said she received its Presidential Award at the 2024 Board of Governors meeting.