A heavy silence hangs over the Bilmes family home in Rishon Lezion. Nearly two years after the Oct. 7 massacre, Leon and Ina still sit before a wall covered with photos of their daughter, Sapir, of blessed memory. With searing pain, they recount the most tragic story parents can tell: the final moments of their daughter’s life and their unending journey through grief.
Sapir’s decision to attend the Nova music festival was spontaneous. She went with Karin Vernikov, a friend she had met during her post-army travels. “That was Sapir,” her mother Ina says with a sad smile. “Always ready for adventure, always with that infectious smile.”
At 6:30 a.m., when the first rockets were launched at Israel, Leon and Ina—unaware of the scale of what was unfolding—called Sapir, urging her to come home. “She promised she was on her way and sent us her phone location,” Leon recalls, his voice trembling. “She tried to calm us immediately. But at some point, everything just stopped—the movement, and then the silence.”
What began as concern quickly spiraled into a nightmare. “Lists started circulating,” Ina recalls of those harrowing early moments. “She was on each one—here, there. And I told myself: until she calls me, I don’t know where she is. And she never called.”
The next day, clinging to hope, Leon and their son Daniel went to the area near the festival site. “We reached the spot where her phone had last pinged,” Leon says. “We stopped and turned back. We even checked Barzilai Hospital, hoping she might have been taken there.”
But at 5:00 a.m. on Oct. 11, 2023, the devastating news came. “They called us from Shura [military base] and said, ‘Come pick up her belongings,’” Leon says, his voice cracking. “We were handed a bag with her pouch and her phone. That’s when we knew.”
Ina tries to piece together the most excruciating moment—the instant the grim truth became clear. “We were sure she had thrown the phone during the massacre,” she says. “But when we got it back, covered in blood, we realized she had it on her. She had lost contact. You still imagine it could end differently.”
Sapir was murdered at 7:10 a.m., according to security footage from Kibbutz Alumim, where she and Karin were last seen.
Amid tears and sorrow, Leon and Ina speak of Sapir’s radiant spirit—a young woman who lit up every place she entered. “She had a special charm that drew people in,” Ina says. “She knew how to be loyal to every group of friends, to make each person feel like they were the most important.”
Everyone who knew Sapir remembers her as someone surrounded by love—a magnet for friends and acquaintances alike. “Sometimes I’d ask her, ‘Sapir, how many hours do you have in a day? Seems like at least 28,’” Ina says through tears. “She juggled two jobs, different circles of friends, parties—and still managed to sleep, all while leaving the house in a state of creative mess only she could organize. She was a true force of nature.”
When the unimaginable tragedy struck their home, Leon and Ina were faced with a dilemma no parents should ever have to confront. “We had only two options,” Ina says. “Either gather the strength to keep living or give up and lie down beside her. There’s no third option in this reality.”
Ina pauses, her voice breaking. “No one in the world can give me back her warm hug. The most painful thing is that in the end, I didn’t get to hug her—the last time I embraced my daughter was that Friday in October, right before she left the house.”
She continues with determination: “We fight every day to keep going and to preserve her memory in every way we can. I want the whole world to know it lost an extraordinary young woman—a girl with a huge heart and irreplaceable talents. The world lost our Sapir.”
Originally published by Israel Hayom.
