Shahar Ben Naim, a father of three, went with Lior Asulin, Hanan Yablonka, Hila Klein and Mercedes Amar, to the Nova music festival on October 7. None of them came back.For about two hours, Shahar hid in an orchard near Mefalsim Junction after two of his friends had been shot, while trying to call for help, updating his mother and sister about what was happening and convinced that rescue forces were on the way. The correspondence with him continued until 9:24 a.m., when it stopped after he was murdered by terrorists.GalleryShahar Ben Naim“I miss his hug the most,” his sister Hagit told ynet. “He had this protective arm that I will never get to feel again.”After Hanan Yablonka’s sister told the Daily Mail how her brother was brutally shot in the chest before terrorists dragged him in a pickup truck to Gaza and executed him barbarically with their weapons in a hospital bed, Shahar’s sister detailed for the first time the moments of terror he endured on the morning of October 7 — and released the last recording he sent to his family.On the evening before October 7, Shahar’s mother still had time to visit him at the horse ranch he had built, and asked him not to go to the party.“My mother came to see him,” his sister recalled. “He was celebrating the birthday of the late Lior Asulin with more friends. My mother told Shahar to come eat the holiday meal with us, but he told her they were celebrating a birthday and maybe afterward they would go to the party. Mom told him, ‘Forget the party, what do you need a party for? You already celebrated.’ He told her, ‘You’re right, I won’t go. We’ll continue at my place in Tel Aviv.’”Later that evening, Hanan arrived at Shahar’s ranch and they continued celebrating with friends, including Hila Klein and Mercedes Amar, who had bought tickets to the Nova festival. Apparently in a last-minute decision, they chose to join Hila and Mercedes and drive to the festival, which was held near Kibbutz Re’im in the Gaza border area. The five got into Hanan’s car, and at about 3 a.m. arrived at the Nova festival site.At 6:29 a.m., the party was stopped, but the five did not feel that the situation was too dangerous and made their way slowly toward Hanan’s car to drive back to Shahar’s ranch. Still, they managed to leave the festival grounds relatively quickly.“They were among the first to leave the Nova compound. They walked casually,” said his sister Hagit. “Shahar even ran into some friend and told him, ‘Come on, we’re going to the ranch, we’ll continue the party there.’”The five got into the car and began driving.“Hila was driving, Shahar sat next to her, and Hanan, Lior and Mercedes sat in the back,” Hagit explained. “At Mefalsim Junction they apparently encountered some vehicle and stopped, or their car stopped. Hanan got out of the car to check what had happened, and at that point the terrorists arrived and shot Hanan. Hila hit the gas and kept driving to escape the terrorists who had shot Hanan. Farther along, on the right side of the road, there was another cell of terrorists lying in wait for them — and they shot at them.”Shahar Ben Naim: He thought he was going to be rescued“At that point, Lior was hit by a bullet in the back,” Shahar’s sister continued. “Hila, Shahar and Mercedes were still alive. At some point, their car stopped or they stopped it themselves, near an orchard, about a kilometer from where Lior was shot. They called Magen David Adom at 6:57 a.m.. Shahar said they had been shot at and that their friend had been hit, and that he did not know what to do. You can hear Hila or Mercedes saying, ‘Lior, Lior,’ trying to talk to him. The MDA dispatcher tells Shahar: ‘Take a shirt and close the wound,’ and Shahar answers her, ‘You don’t know what condition they are in.’ During the call with MDA, you hear them saying the terrorists are running toward the car, and they flee from there into the orchard. You hear Shachar running and saying, ‘I don’t believe it, they shot my two friends.’”Shahar, Hila and Mercedes hid together, alone, in a clementine orchard about a kilometer from Mefalsim Junction. They tried to call for help, while hearing terrorists on every side, until they were murdered.“They did not understand what was happening. They did not understand that what was happening to them was happening to everyone,” Hagit said, describing the moments of terror. “Shahar thought it was a localized incident. He knew he had called an ambulance and that it would arrive any minute. He thought they were coming to rescue him.”“When Shahar realized there was total chaos, he called my mother at around 8 a.m. I was next to her. He told us, ‘They shot my two friends,’ and said they did not understand what was going on. That there was shooting everywhere and that they were hiding in an orchard. He spoke with us by phone three times, and then he continued texting. He sent us his location. I sent it to the police and they said they would send a patrol car to him. I told him that if there was a body near him, he should hide under the body, because he said Lior and Hanan had been killed. He wrote: ‘I think Yablo, Hanan Yablonka, and Lior are finished.’ We texted with him until 9:24 a.m. Until the terrorist murdered them.”“The thought of their fear there in the orchard does not leave me,” Hagit said in pain. “What fear, what they went through in those moments. They were in the orchard for two and a half hours with shooting all around. What terror to think about what he went through in his final moments.”After long hours in which Shahar did not answer, Hagit and her mother understood that the worst had happened. They went to provide a DNA sample at a police station, and the next morning decided to drive to the location Shahar had sent them to look for him.“We started looking for him in hospitals. On the way to Barzilai Medical Center, a group of volunteers reached the location and told me to pull over with the car and that they would send me a picture to see if it was Shahar," Hagit described. "We received a picture of Shahar from a distance, lying down — and I immediately recognized him. They shot him to make sure he was dead. His face was not intact. My mother and I started screaming in the car and drove to the location. At the checkpoint, they asked where we were going, and we said we were going to pick up my brother. I did not say he was dead. We saw burned cars on the road and all the horrors, and we did not understand where we had arrived. We wanted to take Shachar with us and bring him for burial, but there were more sirens and missiles and even a terrorist cell. We returned to the Shura base, and Shachar’s body was taken for identification and then burial.”“Shahar was incredibly sociable,” Hagit said of her brother. “He had so many friends, he had an amazing, captivating smile and he was the most charismatic, the most handsome. A conversationalist. He would bring friends over all the time and was full of love and light. He loved animals very much. He would always bring abandoned dogs home. He loved horses very much. Before he was murdered, his work was the horse ranch. He was a special person who always gave everyone the feeling that he was their best friend. He was a listening ear and helped people so much. Helping others was an inseparable part of him, and his sticker says, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ He looked everyone in the eye as equals and had friends of every kind.”Since the massacre, Hagit and her mother have struggled to move on.“Shahar was very connected to my mother. My mother and Shahar had an extraordinary bond. Shachar lived in Tel Aviv and she would see him on a daily basis. They were constantly on the phone. Today my mother is 73, and she is not in the best condition. From the outside, you see a strong, smiling woman, but inside she is very broken. She does not sleep at night. She takes sleeping pills, and on a good night she sleeps three hours. She is a nurse by profession. After October 7, she could not function in her role as head nurse, and she resigned. I was in a very difficult state. For three months, I did not get up from the couch and simply wanted to die.”He loved horses and worked at a ranch“My anger over what happened comes in waves,” Hagit shared. “I am angry at God, at Shahar, at the state, angry at the army. I do not think there is a single person in the political and security system who is innocent. Where was the army? Where was the head of Military Intelligence? Where was everyone? Everyone fell asleep on guard duty. There is very great anger. Sometimes I am angry at myself: How did I not drive there immediately when he called? There are feelings of guilt.”She said what helps her through the heavy grief is the nonprofit she founded in Shahar’s memory.“Maayan, my friend, asked what would get you up from the sofa, and that is how we established the Or HaShahar HaOleh nonprofit, which supports bereaved families, victims of terror attacks and soldiers through a variety of activities. The work is what keeps me going. The trauma of everything we went through and experienced is so great that you cannot go back to being who you were. It will never be the same again,” Hagit says.“We are a small family as it is. Shahar would bring friends with him to meals and the house was always full of light and joy and his laughter. It is so missing and so deeply felt. The pain is always there and the trauma is with us all the time. I miss his hug the most. He had this protective arm that I will never get to feel again.”“Shachar has three children,” Hagit added. “His eldest, Hof, is 16. They had a very special bond. A few months before he was murdered, Shahar managed to celebrate his bar mitzvah with him and accompany him to the Torah.”