Team News Riveting
Jerusalem, November 27
Avigail Idan, 4, was finally released on November 26 as part of a temporary ceasefire deal brokered by Qatar and the United States between Hamas and Israel.
Avigail’s parents were murdered by Hamas right in front of her eyes. She is now an orphan. Her only comfort is that her brother Michael (9) and sister Amalya (6) miraculously survived.
Four-year-old Avigail Idan was taken captive by Hamas terrorists on October 7, when she was hiding in her neighbor’s home, the Brodutch family, in Kibbutz Kfar Aza. Avigail’s father, Roee Idan, was a Ynet photographer who had run outside to capture the first images of Hamas terrorists on hang-gliders in the skies over the kibbutz.
As he realized something was amiss, he ran home, where terrorists had already entered his home and killed his wife, Smadar. The couple’s three children, Michael, Amalya and Avigail, went outside to their father, but as terrorists approached, Michael and Amalya ran back inside the house, while Avigail ran to the neighbors’ house.
Idan was shot and badly hurt by the Hamas gunmen. He succumbed to his injuries. Michael and Amalya hid for the next 14 hours in a closet in their house, speaking to a Magen David Adom dispatcher who kept in touch with Michael on the phone, telling him to lock the door and not let anyone in, “until good people came.”
Avigail hid with the neighbors, Hagar, 40, Ofri, 10, Yuval, 9 and Oriya Brodutch, 4, in their sealed room, while husband and father Avihai Brodutch went back out to fight the terrorists. When he came home later, his wife, children and Avigail were missing.
Idan’s brother, Amit, had been calling his family all day, trying to figure out what was happening. When Amalya finally answered, she told him, “The terrorists killed mom and dad, but don’t worry, the army is on the way.”
Michael and Amalya are with their aunt and uncle and have had no word of Avigail, who, like her siblings and mother, is a United States citizen.
Avigail turned four on November 24, while held captive in Gaza.
