Iris Haim, the mother of Yotam Haim, who was kidnapped from his home in Kfar Aza on October 7 and mistakenly shot dead by IDF troops after escaping Hamas captivity, published an angry and painful Facebook post after, she said, workers in the area used the room where her son lived as a toilet.
“How would you feel if someone sent you a video showing that the house where your son lived, the house from which he was kidnapped on October 7, had become a public toilet?” Haim wrote. “Not very pleasant, right?
The video was filmed in the home from which Yotam was abducted
(Footage: Iris Haim’s Facebook page)
“So on the 1,000th day of the war, when workers from a contracting company, whose name I will not reveal for now, are working in the Dor Tzair neighborhood, they apparently cannot be bothered to walk to the bathrooms in the kibbutz and choose instead to relieve themselves in Yotam’s room.”
Alongside the post, Haim published a video from the site and added a bitter phrase in Hebrew: “You murdered and also defecated?” She said cameras had been placed in the area, but the case had not yet been solved. “Where are we living?” she wrote. “Tag people who can help with this. Sorry, Yotam.”
About three weeks ago, human feces were found inside two destroyed homes belonging to victims of the October 7 massacre in Kfar Aza’s Dor Tzair neighborhood: the home of Nirel Zini, who was murdered along with his partner Niv Raviv, and the home of Yotam Haim. Following the discovery, the kibbutz decided to install security cameras and increase patrols in the area.
Uri Zini, Nirel’s brother, discovered the feces in the home where his brother had lived. “We come almost every day to light a candle,” he said at the time. “For eight months, we carried out intensive searches here for what was still missing,” he said, referring to Nirel’s head, which has not been found to this day. “We became deeply attached to this place. When we entered the house and saw what was there, we were horrified.”
Iris Haim. 'Sorry Yotam'
(Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)
Security cameras installed last month
(Photo: Roni Green Shaulov)
According to Zini, the home was filled with memorial signs, photos and personal items honoring Nirel and Niv, but that did not stop someone from using it as a toilet. “Someone chose to do it there,” he said. “He simply did not care.”
Later, Zini said, a similar discovery was made in Yotam’s destroyed home. “There were feces there too, along with toilet paper and wipes. There was no mistaking it,” he said. “It seems likely to me that it was one of the workers, because there are many of them here. I don’t know whether it was deliberate. Tensions developed with the contractor, and it may have happened in other homes too, but we don’t know. I asked the contractor to address it with the workers.”
“It is a very hard feeling,” he added. “They are literally defecating on you. It feels like contempt, anger and humiliation.” At the same time, Zini urged people not to let the incident fuel incitement or division. “It is important to me that we focus less on hatred toward others or ourselves, and instead truly come together, beyond right and left or cheap politics,” he said.
The kibbutz treated the incident seriously. “We could not believe something like this could happen,” a kibbutz official said at the time. The official said kibbutz leaders spoke with the contractors working in the area, while the community security coordinator ordered security cameras installed and instructed patrol teams to visit the Dor Tzair neighborhood more often to increase supervision.
Nirel Zini; human feces were also found in his home
(Photo: Courtesy of the family)
Yotam Haim was 28 when he died. A musician and drummer in a metal band, he was at home in Kfar Aza’s Dor Tzair neighborhood on the morning of October 7, 2023. After Hamas terrorists infiltrated the kibbutz, he was kidnapped to the Gaza Strip.
For more than two months, Haim was held captive alongside Alon Shamriz, also abducted from Kfar Aza, and Samer Talalka, who was kidnapped from the Nir Am area. The three managed to escape their captors and spent several days trying to signal to IDF troops operating in the Shuja'iyya area that they were Israeli hostages.
On December 15, 2023, the three walked toward IDF troops shirtless, with one of them carrying a white cloth. The IDF force mistakenly identified them as a threat and opened fire. Shamriz and Talalka were killed first, while Haim fled to a nearby building. Later, after calls for help in Hebrew were heard from the building, Haim came out and was also shot dead.
An IDF investigation found that the shooting of the three hostages violated the rules of engagement and that the troops had failed in their mission.
After the tragedy, Iris Haim sent a recorded message to the soldiers involved in the incident, expressing support for them and making clear that she did not blame them for her son’s death. She later met with some of the soldiers.
In April, the Be’er Sheva Family Court approved the Haim family’s request to use Yotam’s sperm to bring a child into the world. The ruling found that Yotam’s desire to have children after his death could be inferred from things he had told his family during his lifetime.