Noam Sapir of Eilat, enlisted in the IDF’s academic reserve law program on Oct. 6, 2021. But two years later, when she was supposed to begin her third year of studies, everything changed. That's when her grandfather, the late Shlomo Mansour, was kidnapped from his home in Kissufim and taken to the Gaza Strip.
“The only thing Grandma Mazal managed to tell my mother was, ‘They took him,’” Noam, 23, recalls of the first conversation after hours of lost contact. Only after her parents traveled to the Dead Sea, where Mazal had been evacuated, “my father called us and said grandpa had been kidnapped. Grandma saw everything. They tried to kidnap her too.”
Later, Noam heard from her grandmother what happened during those hours: “Five terrorists broke into the house shooting. Some of them took her out. She begged them not to shoot her. Others went to the safe room, grabbed my grandfather, handcuffed him and took him out of the safe room. They slapped him, beat him.
“The terrorists took the car keys and took grandma out of the house toward it. They led my grandfather handcuffed, and they were holding my grandmother by the hand. On the path toward the car, grandma noticed that the door of the neighbor’s house was open. She shook her shoulder free from the terrorist’s hand and ran there, and that is how she was saved.”
Noam marks her 21st birthday at Hostages Square, waiting for her grandfather to return home
(Photo: Oz Moalem)
When it became known that Shlomo, 85, the oldest hostage and the only hostage from Kibbutz Kissufim, had been abducted, the family launched a campaign to bring him home. About a year and a half later, they received the most difficult news of all: Shlomo had been murdered in Hamas captivity. During those turbulent days, Noam also took part in a conference marking her return to service.
“I decided not to give up,” she says of her insistence on moving ahead with the academic track that will ultimately lead to her military assignment. “At the same time, the bodies of hostages were being returned and it was terribly stressful. I asked my commanders for permission to be on my phone, and at the same time I was looking at the screen, trying to understand who the hostages being returned were and whether maybe it was my grandfather. I was kind of entering my final exam period, while trying to figure out for a second how to breathe at all.”
The funeral procession for Shlomo Mansour
(Photo: Motti Kimchi)
As someone who lost the person dearest to her when the system failed in its role of protecting residents of the Gaza border communities, she admits that returning to service came with “very mixed feelings.”
Influencing from within
Just a week after the war broke out, while she was still in the academic studies phase of the reserve program, Noam asked to volunteer immediately for any role that was needed.
“I said, ‘If it did not happen on October 7, I will be the one to make that change so it will not happen again.’ When I am part of the system, I have much more ability to influence than from the outside,” she explained.
Noam receives the rank of officer
(Photo: Courtesy of the family)
“My training lasts three and a half years. I thought that maybe during that time I could do other things that are not legal work and at the end of the degree I would return to my track. It was hard for me to be outside while all this was happening.”
Noam’s determination throughout the process led to the moment when she received her lieutenant’s ranks at the officer training course graduation ceremony at Bahad 1, held late last month.
“I went through a process with myself to be mentally and physically ready for the course. During it too, I went through a process, and the ceremony is a kind of proof that here I am — despite, in spite of and because of.”
How do you think your grandfather would have reacted if he were alive?
“He would have been very, very proud of me. He knew I was in this process and that it was my choice, that I wanted to do it. After October 7, it burned in me even more. My grandmother was filled with pride, and it was very moving.”
Noam with grandpa Shlomo
(Photo: Courtesy of the family)
Noam was assigned to a position in the Military Advocate General’s Corps in the Judea and Samaria legal adviser’s office, and is expected to continue serving at least until October 2030.
“I think this position is developing me greatly as a lawyer, and I see myself continuing on to additional roles in the Military Advocate General’s Corps," she said. “I went to the officers course because I want to command. It is important to me to influence and lead change. The commanders who commanded me had a great influence on me, and I want to be that for the soldiers I will have.”
A very young Noam with her grandpa
(Photo: Courtesy of the family)
At the end of the conversation, Noam reminded me of our last meeting, when she came to Hostages Square on her birthday about two years ago, waiting for her grandfather to return alive.
For her, this interview is an emotional closing of a circle: “If two years ago I ‘celebrated’ my 21st birthday at Hostages Square, this year I celebrated my 23rd birthday where I most wanted to be all this time — at the officers course at Bahad 1.”