This is Avigail Idan. She’s four. Can anyone tell me what kind of threat a four year old baby poses for the two-state solution? What type of terrible power did she have that justifies executing her parents and trying to take her out, too, Voldemort style? Does Avigail hold the key to the freedom of the Palestinian people?

Of course not, and the freedom of the Palestinian people is not what concerns Hamas. The terror organization of Hamas has only one ultimate goal: the establishment of the Islamic State. That means 1. the total destruction of Israel and all Jews on the planet and 2. conquering the entire world until every single person is under radical Islamic control. Sounds fun? Not really. But because these goals are kind of hard to reach, in the mean time, they will satisfy themselves by inflicting as much death, pain and destruction on Israel as they possibly can. Go to town, boys! You can do anything you like to them. Really live out those sadistic fantasies. That’s what I imagine Yahya Sinwar said to them. Or, as I prefer to call him: You-Know-Who.

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On October 7, Avigail Idan was three years old. She lived in kibbutz Kfar Aza with her father, Roee, her mother, Smadar, and her 2 siblings, Michael and Amalia. Roee Idan was a photojournalist for the news website Ynet. On the morning of October 7, he actually went outside with a camera and filmed the arrival of the terrorists in paragliders. This is a still from one of his videos, as published on Ynet:

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At the end of the video, Roee drops the camera and starts running. He runs home, grabs his wife and children, tells them to run, to hide, that terrorists are flooding into their kibbutz. But they would not get far. Hamas gunmen broke into their home at that very moment and opened fire. Smadar collapsed. The two older children ran and hid in a closet. Roee, who was holding Avigail, was shot too, and fell to the ground, covering Avigail with his body.

The murderers must have thought they had shot Avigail too, because they left. But Avigail was unhurt. She crawled out from under her father’s body, covered in his blood. She fled in terror and ran to her neighbours’ house, the Brodutch family. Hagar Brodutch took Avigail into the safe room with her own three children, while her husband went out to fight. But when Avihai Brodutch came back to his house, he found his wife, his three children and Avigail missing. They had all been abducted to Gaza. Avigail was gone, in the hands of the monsters who murdered her family.

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The Brodutch family: Hagar, Avihai, Ofri (10), Yuval (9) and Oriya (4).

Avigail and the Brodutches were in captivity for 50 days. Avigail turned four years old on November 24. US president Joe Biden took a specific interest in Avigail, because she has dual citizenship with ties to Arizona, and because of her status an an orphan. “What she endured is unthinkable,” he said.

Avihai Brodutch was in a way the opposite of an orphan: a father whose family was torn away from him. He didn’t know what to do. So he went to Tel Aviv with his dog, Rodney, and sat in front of the Ministry of Defense. He waited for 50 days.

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On November 26, the third day of the ceasefire, Avigail and the Brodutches were finally released. The reunion of Hagar and the children with their father and their dog was one of the most healing, wholesome things I have ever seen. Their joy made the whole country smile through their tears.

But Avigail Idan had no parents to come back to. She was welcomed by her extended family, her grandparents and her aunt and uncle. I was touched to the heart to see her smile, holding the hand of her aunt, who looks remarkably like her.

Her grandparents and aunt are now taking care of her and her siblings. They are all traumatized beyond anything we could ever imagine. How can young children even understand such horror? I can’t understand it either, and I’m 49.

I can only hope that the children and the whole family will receive all the help they need and will eventually be able to heal from this. We love you, Abigail. You are the Girl Who Lived.

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