TEL AVIV, ISRAEL: A three-year-old girl, who is being held captive in Gaza, was apparently in her father's arms when he and her mother were killed by the Palestine militant group. Fortunately, the girl survived as she managed to crawl out from under his body before she was kidnapped.
Abigail Mor Idan and her family were in their home on Kibbutz Kfar Aza when Hamas launched the attack on October 7 and opened fire, killing her parents, Roi and Smadar, according to The Jerusalem Post.
How were Abigail Mor Idan's parents murdered?
Roi, a news photographer, was shot while he was holding Abigail and fell on top of her, but she managed to crawl “from under her father’s body … full of his blood,” her great-aunt Liz Hirsh Naftali told NBC News’ Lester Holt.
Smadar was gunned down in the living room while Abigail’s siblings, aged nine and six, sought refuge in closets. They are now in the care of relatives.
Abigail Mor Idan's older siblings witnessed their parents being slaughtered
Abigail escaped to a nearby house and scrunched up with the family inside a bomb shelter while the massacre continued outside, Hirsh Naftali said.
“The last thing we learned was that somebody saw [a] terrorist taking this mother, her three kids and Abigail out of the kibbutz. That’s all we know,” she said.
The great-aunt said Abigail’s older siblings witnessed their parents being slaughtered. “They saw their mother murdered. They saw their father murdered. These kids know their parents are gone,” Hirsh Naftali told NBC News.
“What do you say to these kids? You give them love. You give them everything," she added.
Hirsh Naftali was joined by seven other families whose American relatives have been captured, including Orna Neutra, whose 21-year-old son Omer, an Israeli soldier from Long Island, is one of the hostages.
“It’s been 39 days. We know nothing. We know they were taken. We know they were whole when they were taken. We have no idea where they’re being held, whether they’ve been tortured, whether they’re being fed,” Neutra said, adding “Can you imagine that? It’s unimaginable."
Hamas is believed to hold 239 captives
The Israeli government has said Hamas is believed to hold 239 captives. White House’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the US does not know the exact number of captives, though he confirmed nine Americans are still missing.
“We don’t know the status — whether they are alive or whether they have passed away — but we are looking to get the safe recovery of all of those individuals,” he said on CNN.
