WATCH INTERVIEW: Educator and war hero – Inbal Caspi helps save her kibbutz from Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7

Israel's Ministry of Education opened a new school near the Dead Sea in the Eshkol Regional Council this week. The school was established for the evacuees of Israel's southern border communities that were under attack on Oct. 7, when Hamas terrorists and their accomplices invaded and violently massacred more than 1,200 and kidnapped some 240 hostages into Gaza.

Inbal Caspi, the agricultural teacher and social coordinator for the new school, is an evacuee from Kibbutz Magen. She is a third-generation resident, with grandparents who were among the founding members of the community. Her parents, sisters, nephews all live on the kibbutz and all of them were home on that "Black Shabbat," when the terrorists infiltrated the quiet community.

Caspi defines herself first and foremost as an educator, however, she also happens to be an IDF sergeant major in the Karakal Battalion of the Southern Command. She was the only female fighter on the emergency first responders team that morning at the kibbutz. She is, in fact, one of the very few women responders, in general.

She described that morning on the kibbutz during an interview with KAN 11 news.

Caspi said she woke up next to her partner to the sound of sirens and by 6:50 a.m., had already received her first WhatsApp message from the first responders team.

"Whoever is at the kibbutz, do you have a weapon at home or not? Whoever has a weapon take it, with a full bullet-proof vest, and get to the operations room immediately. If you have no weapon, head out to the armory now. Careful everyone!" the message read.

Caspi took her bike to the armory to collect equipment, when she and others heard gunshots and began running. Eventually, she was able to meet up with friends and get to a vantage point with a view of the area. That was when she saw the terrorists infiltrating the fence on the kibbutz.

"And then we begin to see a large number of terrorists, about 30 or 40," she said. "We simply opened fire as soon as we identified the terrorists who were trying to enter the kibbutz," she recalled.

"They shoot mortars at us," she said while watching video footage of the incident that morning.

Caspi talked about the importance of remaining calm in life-or-death situations like the one she was in that morning.

"Because in the end if we operate under pressure, we don't pay attention," she explained. "But once you are calm and you look at the picture for a second in a more broad way, you end up managing the situation better," the sergeant-major said.

Altogether, the heroic battle for Kibbutz Magen lasted about three hours, during which one of the first responders on her team, Avi Fleischer, was killed. Others were wounded, such as Kibbutz Security Coordinator Baruch Cohen. Ultimately, the terrorists were repelled from the line of the houses and left the kibbutz.

Caspi is now back to teaching students at the new school. Like them, she is displaced and it is unclear when she will be able to return to her home on Kibbutz Magen.

"My feeling when I came to teach here, when I knew that here at this school, there are children from my kibbutz as well, for me it became a mission."

Today Caspi is considered one of the heroes of Oct. 7. She is still recovering from that very difficult day.

She shared her disillusionment with the Israeli government regarding the safety of residents living near Israel's border with Gaza.

"It took around 6-7 hours for the army to get here. The trust is broken, let's put it this way. I lost my trust in the army and in the state."

I was.. all of us were..under illusion that we are safe here; that we are in the area full of the IDF, full of security forces," she said. "But they were not there."

Caspi described the battle for Kibbutz Magen as a mixture of luck and resourcefulness.

"We all took part. We spread out in a very very correct way and that's how we really managed to prevent the disaster which could have happened at Kibbutz Magen.

"Women have power and they are able and as they say, 'Women can multi-task,' so they can be both, women educators, and women in security forces, as well."

Watch the interview with KAN 11 interview with IDF Sergeant-Major Inbal Caspi here.