In another life, Chen Nahmias might have become a veterinarian. He studied animal sciences and marine biology, and his love for animals was evident to all who knew him. But Nahmias chose a different path — one of service and sacrifice. After completing his studies, he returned to combat and joined Israel’s most elite and dangerous counterterrorism unit, the Special Police Unit, better known by its Hebrew acronym, Yamam.
That decision would ultimately define his legacy. On the morning of Oct. 7, Nahmias was among the first responders who rushed to the south. At 6:30 a.m., he sent a message to his wife, Tal, letting her know he had been called up.
“I was supposed to bring the kids to visit him at the unit that Saturday,” she recalled. “Then he messaged me that they’d been activated — that there were rockets and something serious was happening.”
At the Sderot junction, Nahmias’ team spotted what they identified as a vehicle carrying terrorists. They dismounted and engaged in a gunfight, neutralizing the immediate threat. Based on the intelligence available to them at the time, the event was over. But Nahmias, who was a sniper, must have sensed otherwise. At 7:20 a.m., he sent Tal another message: “I love you, my neshama,” using a Hebrew term of affection literally meaning “soul.” It was the last thing she would ever hear from him.
As the team returned to their vehicle, five more terrorists emerged from an ambush. Nahmias was killed. His team leader was injured. That moment, his unit later said, marked the turning point — the realization that what was unfolding across Israel was far beyond a localized terrorist infiltration.
A few months before he was killed at the age of 43, in an interview for Channel 12, Nahmias had spoken about the emotional toll of his service, the fear of being under constant risk of death and the pain of losing friends.
“There’s a feeling, maybe karma, that Noam Raz [a fellow Yamam combat soldier who was killed] is watching over us,” he said. “I don’t know. Maybe I really do believe in good karma — because of what we do, the way we do it and the belief behind it. But in the end, this is our profession. We come prepared. Always.”
After his death, during the shiva, Nahmias’s friends from Duvdevan — his former IDF unit — looked for a way to honor him. They remembered the man who, in the middle of a mission, would stop a vehicle to move a hedgehog off the road. The man who brought home stray dogs and cared for them. They knew that any tribute to Nahmias had to reflect not only his bravery but also his gentleness — his love for animals and for his fellow soldiers.
Together, they started a foundation and established Nekudat Chen — a dog shelter and rehabilitation space in Kibbutz Ein Gedi. (The name is also a play-on-words in Hebrew, meaning both “Chen’s spot” and “beauty mark”.) Nestled in a grove near the Dead sea, it’s a place that, as many visitors have said, feels just like Nahmias — serene, grounded in nature and full of quiet strength.
Nati Azulay, Nahmias’s closest friend from his military service and a CFO, helped lead the creation of Nekudat Chen. For him, the mission was clear from the start. “This project has four goals,” Azulay said. “First, to rescue and rehome dogs. After Oct. 7, so many families had to evacuate and couldn’t take their pets with them. There were dogs left behind, and dogs belonging to reservists and soldiers who were called up and needed help — we knew we had to create a home for them. At one point, we had almost 30 dogs.
“Second, it’s a space for healing. Some of the guys from our unit are living with [post-traumatic stress disorder]. This place gives them something to wake up for. Some live at the shelter, others help run it. Taking care of the dogs, being part of this mission — it’s helped bring them back to life. Members of our team who were struggling with suicidal thoughts are now part of this. They found purpose again. They found life.
“Third — and this is my selfish reason,” Azulay added, his voice steady but full of emotion, “it’s a living memorial for Chen, my best friend.”
Tal agreed. “It is the most accurate way to honor Chen,” she said. “Not a stone or a plaque — but a breathing memorial. A place where people can come, talk about him, feel him. A place that grows, that helps, that heals. That’s who Chen was.”
Now raising their four children alone, Tal continues to carry both grief and gratitude. During a Zoom call from her backyard in Even Yehuda, in central Israel, her youngest daughter, Bar — who was only 16 months old when Nahmias was killed — poked her curly blond head, with the same beautiful eyes she inherited from her father, into the frame. “It’s my birthday soon,” she said. Then she turned to her mother: “I want Daddy to come.”
Tal took a deep breath. Nearly two years have passed, and she continues to navigate life after loss. Her eldest is about to celebrate her bat mitzvah. “The healing is different for each of them,” she said. “But Ein Gedi has become a second family. We go there on weekends. We’ve grown close to Chen’s friends and their families. There’s something in the air there. Something magical. It’s peace, and it’s pain — all in one place. Just being in nature, watching the Dead Sea… Chen would have loved it.”
Now, the team is ready to take the next step — expanding the project into its second phase: a space for healing soldiers with PTSD.
“We’ve completed the first phase of construction, and now we’re moving into the second,” said Azulay. “We’re creating a space for PTSD victims to hold workshops. We won’t run the workshops ourselves — we’ll just provide the space. The idea is to work with Duvdevan and Yamam teams, where a psychologist comes with the unit, and we’ll take care of lodging and food.”
“We started renovating the space,” he added, “but had to stop due to lack of funds. Now we’re working on raising money to complete the second phase.”
“This place has already saved lives,” said Azulay. “With the support of people near and far, we hope this circle of love — of healing, of purpose, of remembrance — will only continue to grow.”
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