Just turned 26, combat veteran Inbal Rabin Lieberman serves as the security coordinator of Kibbutz Nir Am, near the Gaza border. 

On the morning of October 7, swarms of heavily armed terrorists from Gaza infiltrated 22 kibbutzim and other communities in the area, killing hundreds.

But nobody was killed at Nir Am, thanks to Lieberman’s fast actions. 

She’d been alerted by the Israel Defense Forces at 6:30am to awaken her 12-person security team. She and her uncle, Ami Rabin, the previous security coordinator, did much more. 

They distributed weapons to members of the team and instructed them to take up positions at the gate of the kibbutz. They then went house to house, making sure Nir Am’s families were sheltered in fortified rooms. 

Shortly afterwards, a dozen terrorists approached the kibbutz and at least three were shot dead immediately. They prevented the others from entering, holding out against the infiltrators for about three and a half hours until IDF soldiers arrived. 

Tragically and ironically, seven Gazan workers in the kibbutz’s nearby orange grove were killed by the terrorists.

Lieberman, her family, and the rest of the kibbutzniks were evacuated at 3am the next day to a hotel in Tel Aviv. Mayor Ran Huldai came to meet her. 

“Inbal is a heroine,” Huldai wrote on Facebook. “Her story, which is being published everywhere, leaves no one indifferent — for her coolness, courage and bravery. Thanks to Inbal, dozens of lives have been saved. Thanks to her, Kibbutz Nir Am was saved.”