7 October 2023

Michael and Amalia Idan · 9 and 6 years old

“Daddy is dead. Mom's dead.”

The Idan family lived in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, a few kilometres from the Gaza border. Roy, 43, was a photojournalist for Ynet. His wife Smadar was 38. Their children were Michael, 9, Amalia, 6, and Abigail, 3.

At 6.29 the siren sounded. Roy went out to take photographs, documented the arrival of the terrorists on motorised paragliders and sent the images to the newsroom, also alerting the kibbutz security coordinator. A few minutes later a terrorist fired through a window and killed Smadar in front of their three children. Roy came back, found her dead, picked up Abigail and ran outside with Michael and Amalia. A terrorist wearing an Israeli army uniform shot him while he was holding his daughter.

Michael and Amalia ran back into the safe room and hid in a closet. From there they called the Magen David Adom emergency number, and an emergency mental health worker stayed on the phone with them for almost twelve hours. They told their grandparents that their dad was dead, that their mom was dead and that Abigail was dead too.

But Abigail was alive. She had wriggled out from under her father's body and run alone to the neighbours' house, the Brodutch family, where Uriah, her best friend from nursery school, lived. At around 11 the terrorists found them too. Hagar Brodutch tried to protect the children by shouting that they were only children, but they were all loaded into a car and taken to Gaza.

Michael and Amalia were rescued by special forces at around 7:20 p.m., after about twelve hours in the closet. Roy and Smadar were buried side by side on 20 October 2023 in Moshav Kfar HaRif. Abigail was released on 26 November 2023 together with the Brodutch family and was reunited with her siblings. The three children were later adopted by their aunt Liron Mor, her husband Zoli and their children.