October 7 · Personal story
Rimon Kirsht Buchstab
Abducted
October 7, 2023
Abduction location
Kibbutz Nirim
Current outcome
Released alive · November 28, 2023
Released alive on November 28, 2023; husband Yagev remained captive.
01
Life before October 7
Rimon was born and raised in Kibbutz Magen; Yagev grew up nearby in Nirim. They met at regional elementary school, when she was in third grade and he was in first, and became friends before losing touch. They reconnected when Rimon was 16, and Yagev remained her best friend for years. Their friendship became a relationship in 2020. They married on March 12, 2021, on the lawn behind his parents’ home in Nirim. Yagev studied sound engineering, taught music, built instruments, and made a recording studio. Rimon worked as a massage therapist. They had five dogs and four cats, grew hot peppers, and rode a tandem bicycle. On October 6, they stayed home for dinner and a film.
02
Abduction
At 6:29 a.m. on October 7, rocket sirens woke Rimon and Yagev. Their five dogs ran into the bedroom, unusually silent and frightened. The safe-room door handle was broken, so they stayed with the dogs in the bedroom. Rimon called people she loved and told them she loved them and that attackers were shooting at her. When a man entered the house, she slashed his hand with a kitchen knife; she and Yagev pushed him out and braced the door with their bodies. At about 8:40, attackers broke in and tried to pull them apart. Rimon said their clothes tore, and they were dragged across the pavement and beaten. She suffered burns, broken teeth, a jaw injury, and a fractured hand. They were taken across the fields barefoot in pajamas.
03
Captivity
Rimon and Yagev were driven through Gaza in a white car. She covered Yagev’s eyes to shield him from what they passed, and looked at the bodies along the route in case details could help identify people. After a crash, they were moved into a tunnel, where Rimon saw other hostages, including older people and children coughing from smoke. Captors shifted people repeatedly. At one point, Rimon and Yagev were separated from a group of fourteen and taken to a house in Khan Younis. During the first days, her mouth was badly injured and one tooth had to come out. Rather than let captors pull it, she demanded pliers and removed it herself. Later, she and Yagev were separated. While captive, they wrote down plans for life after Gaza, including continuing to try for the daughter they had named Dalia Aza Buchshtab-Kirsht and moving to a rural community. Rimon recalled that they imagined messages for the child.
04
Return
Rimon was released alive on November 28, 2023. In the vehicle on the way to the handover point, a captor repeatedly taunted her, promising that Yagev would come home in two days, then four. At the Red Cross handover, she stepped out and confronted him, refusing to hide her anger. She later said she cursed him in Arabic so the people watching would understand. Yagev was not with her; he remained in captivity. Rimon was taken to Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, where she realized that footage of her confrontation had spread.
05
After return
According to information later given to the family, Yagev was murdered on February 14, 2024, alongside five elderly hostages. Rimon received definitive confirmation of his death in July, and his body was returned to Israel in August. For more than 1,000 days after her November 2023 release, she did not speak publicly about what had happened to her. In 2026, she chose to tell her account, including the future she and Yagev had imagined. She said leaving a tunnel does not mean leaving it behind; daily life still demands effort and recovery.