Neither Galit, nor Nicole, knew it at the time, but hundreds of Hamas terrorists had ambushed the tight-knit community at Kibbutz Be’eri in southern Israel and were going house to house slaughtering families.

Her neighbours were being tortured and shot, the bodies of festival goers at a nearby music event were being burnt beyond recognition and 250 hostages were being dragged into Gaza.

All the while, her Australian family – located in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth – waited desperately for news more than 10,000km away.

In an exclusive interview with the Herald Sun to mark the one year anniversary of the October 7 terror attacks, Nicole Carbone – the daughter of the only Australian murdered in the massacre – revealed the horrifying moments leading up to her mother’s brutal murder.

Nicole said in true “Galit style” their last conversation had begun with laughter.

“She told me she had just booked a flight to Australia – her first visit home in more than 50 years,” Nicole said.

“She was laughing. She said something like, ‘I guess this is gonna be a reason that I’m not gonna make it to Australia’.

“That was the person she was, she used to laugh and be happy about everything.”

Galit was 10 years old when she left Australia with her family, leaving her beloved Bondi Beach behind – a spot she would later describe to her three children as “the most beautiful place on earth”.

At her home in Kibbutz Be’eri, just 5km from the Gaza border, a tub of Vegemite sat in the cupboard and a Boomerang magnet was proudly displayed on the fridge.

“She really loved being Australian,” Nicole said.

Nicole spent every weekend with her mother on the kibbutz.

But in the week leading up to what would be the most devastating attack on Jews since the Holocaust, Nicole – busy with work commitments – decided not to go.

“It was the first weekend in years that I haven’t been there,” she said.

“I told myself on Friday evening … Nicole, just let it go, it’s one weekend.

“What’s the worst going to happen?”

As news of the attack broke, Nicole, a young mum herself, considered driving to the kibbutz to rescue her mother.

“I told her, listen, whenever the missiles are going to stop, I’m going to get in the car and I’m going to drive down to the kibbutz, and I’m going to pick you up,” she said.

“It’s really hard for me that I wasn’t there to protect her, to fight for her and to be with her physically.”

When Galit finally heard them break into the house, she said something Nicole will never forget.

“She told me: ‘my ray of sun, my beautiful daughter, I love you’,” she said.

Nicole would later get those “precious” words tattooed on her arm.

“I think this was the moment that we both realised that … this is a sentence of a soul that knows that it came to an end,” she said.

“I told her, listen, I love you too. Everything is okay. We all love you so much.”

Moments later, Galit’s voice became a whisper.

“She said, “they’re here for me,” Nicole says.

“And then she hung up the phone, and that was it.”

Seconds later, Hamas gunmen would fire four bullets at Galit, two of which struck her to the back.

And two weeks later, desperate for answers, Nicole would be escorted into her mother’s home and into the safe room by soldiers which still housed her old bed.

“I saw my bed covered with blood,” she says.

“I saw the bullet holes in the wall.”

Last month, Nicole visited her mother’s grave to deliver a birthday gift, a pot plant, to mark Galit’s 67th birthday.

“Celebrating her birthday was just a little bit more (about) processing that she’s not here anymore,” she said.

Today, Galit’s Australian family will be among the nation’s 100,000-strong Jewish diaspora mourning those murdered and taken hostage during the terror attack.

Her cousin Julian Cappe, from Sydney, recalled the “agonising” two-day wait for news after Hamas’ murderous rampage.

“All we knew was that something had happened to Galit,” he said.

On October 9, Mr Cappe was personally confronted by protesters who rallied in front of the Sydney Opera House – later chanting “f--k” the Jews – while he waited at Circular Quay.

Just hours later, he received the worst possible news over text from Galit’s siblings.

“It was a moment of incredible sadness,” he said.

“My wife and I, we looked at each other in tears.

“Galit was such a non-political, peace-loving person who kept to herself.

“To hear she had been attacked and killed in her own home was just a devastating shock.”

Melbourne relative Gal, who recalled Galit’s excitement about returning to Australia for a reunion, said he would forever be devastated that he was not able to welcome her home.

“I always remember her big smile, and her big beautiful shiny eyes,” he said.