From Nir Oz to the Waves: How Surf Therapy Helped an October 7 Survivor Reclaim Her Inner Strength

Dalit Ram Aharon never thought she would touch a surfboard.

“We were uprooted in one day,” she recalls.

The family spent three months in Eilat before moving to Carmei Gat, where they joined the displaced Nir Oz community. Dalit’s entire focus shifted to advocating for the return of the hostages, including her close friend Shiri Bibas, z”l, who had supported her dream and helped build the initial Festi-Mama. Shiri was taken hostage to Gaza on October 7 along with her two young children, Ariel and Kfir, z”l, and her husband, Yarden. Shiri and the kids were killed in captivity at the beginning of the war, and their bodies returned to Israel over a year later, on one of the most emotional days for the country since the start of the war. Yarden survived and returned alive just weeks prior.

“I decided I couldn’t focus on anything,” Dalit says. “I put everything aside, and the only thing I cared about was fighting for the hostages to come home.”

Her initial reaction was skepticism.

“What does this have to do with me? Me, surfing? Absolutely not,” she recalled thinking.

Despite her hesitancy, she agreed to join a group surfing class for adults from Nir Oz. Two sessions in and not feeling like she was making progress, she dropped out.

Yet something about walking away bothered her. She told her social worker that if a women’s group for survivors from Nir Oz would be established again in the spring, she would be the first to sign up. When that group was formed, Dalit returned.

“It wasn’t easy,” she recalls. “It’s not like I was one of those people for whom surfing came naturally and I caught on right away. Not at all.”

But slowly, something changed. Her first breakthrough came when she successfully stood up on a surfboard. The accomplishment was seemingly small, but to Dalit it represented something much larger.

“Wow,” she remembers thinking. “If I can do this, I can do anything. I really am capable.”

That perspective came to define how she viewed her journey in therapeutic surfing. The challenges of the sea began to mirror the challenges she was facing on land.

But the experience was not limited to the water. HaGal Sheli’s therapeutic framework provided a cohesive group and a support system that helped Dalit feel safe enough to cope with all that she and her family were going through.

“I felt embraced,” she says. “I felt that I had someone I could rely on.”

That sense of belonging eventually spread to her family. Her husband Dalit’s husband became an instructor at HaGal Sheli’s Zikim Surf Therapy Center after graduating from the organization's trauma-oriented surf therapy programs. Her children also learned to surf through HaGal Sheli.

“We really became a surfing family,” she says.

For Dalit, the transformation continued beyond Israel. Her group eventually traveled to Sri Lanka, where approximately 45 women surfed together. The experience reinforced her new identity. At one point, while speaking with another Israeli in a shop, Dalit mentioned she needed to buy sunscreen. The woman told her that the one available in the store was for surfers.

“Yes, I’m a surfer too,” Dalit replied.

The sentence made Dalit realize she had discovered a new part of her identity, one she had never expected to find.

Dalit's experience is one example in a trove of transformative stories that HaGal Sheli has helped write – for thousands of October 7 survivors, including former hostages and Nova festival survivors – as well as soldiers and others suffering from post-traumatic stress and similar challenges.

For Dalit, the center carries particular significance. Aside from the fact that her husband is now an instructor there, many of the clientele the center serves come from the Gaza border kibbutzim and communities—the majority of whom are October 7 survivors.

“The fact that this center was built at all is a huge victory,” Dalit says. “Nineteen people were murdered there on October 7, and today at the same place stands a center where people from the Gaza border communities who experienced October 7 so intensely are coming to gain the tools to cope with their trauma.”

In June 2026, the festival returned with approximately 650 women. Dalit dedicated the event to the memory of Shiri, who had been an important supporter of the original dream. Before October 7, Shiri had suggested several Israeli singers who could perform at the festival. Dalit made sure all three were included in the revived event, alongside additional performers including Dana Berger.

For Dalit, Festi-Mama is ultimately about creating a space where every woman can feel that she belongs. This philosophy is echoed by HaGal Sheli, in its work with the Nir Oz community and beyond.

Rotem Lev Ari, a social worker with the community, first encountered HaGal Sheli by joining one of its groups herself. After experiencing the program firsthand, she began bringing it into her work with Nir Oz residents. What began with one mixed group gradually expanded to around 10 groups, including groups for men, women, mixed groups and parents and children.

“At the beginning, I never imagined we would reach this scale of activity and so many groups,” Lev Ari says. “It makes me very happy.”

The women’s groups emerged as the community’s needs became clearer. Lev Ari describes the experience as particularly meaningful, because it gave women an opportunity to spend time together, to find their own voices and experience the sea in a uniquely feminine way.

She also traveled with the group to Sri Lanka, an experience she describes as a “very meaningful journey.”

“I felt that HaGal Sheli brought something different,” she says. “It gives people an opportunity to step out of their routine, breathe, be active, enjoy themselves, and choose their own pace and their own way.”

What began with a single group ultimately grew into a much broader community activity, with more and more Nir Oz residents joining over the past two years.

“For me, that is one of the clearest examples of the power of this activity,” Lev Ari says. “When you give people the opportunity to try something new, sometimes they discover just how much they need it and how good it can make them feel.”

Completing HaGal Sheli’s surf therapy program wasn't the end of Dalit's journey towards healing. Months later, surfing remains a vital part of her routine, shared regularly with her husband.

“We try to go at least once a week,” she says. “It’s like a gift we received.”

The couple are even considering a family surfing vacation.

For someone who once wondered what surfing had to do with her, the answer has become clear.

“There is something so therapeutic about surfing,” Dalit says. “And when you don’t just surf but continue the therapeutic process afterward…it gives you so much strength.

“It was a feeling of supreme capability. It truly is one of the greatest lifelines I’ve received since October 7.”