War in the Middle East
Four-year-old with relatives after Hamas kidnapping
US President Joe Biden commented on the release of the four-year-old girl. photo
© Stephanie Scarbrough/AP/dpa
The girl survived the Hamas massacre on October 7 and was abducted to Gaza with around 240 other people. Now the little girl has been released – but she will never see her parents again.
A four-year-old American girl who is accused of murdering her parents in the Hamas massacre Israel, who was kidnapped to the Gaza Strip, is reunited with his relatives. The child’s family published photos of the reunion. The girl was released on Sunday evening as part of an agreement between the Israeli government and Hamas. A photograph circulated in Israeli media showed little Avigail smiling on her aunt’s lap on a bed in a children’s hospital, with her uncle and grandparents present.
On October 7th, the then three-year-old experienced the terrorist attack with her two siblings, aged ten and six, in a kibbutz on the border with the Gaza Strip. The attackers shot the mother in front of the three children, as US media reported. When the father lay protectively over his daughter, he was also shot. Her siblings survived because they hid in a closet. They said they stayed there for 14 hours until they were rescued.
Avigail, who was initially thought to be dead, reportedly crawled out from under her father’s body and ran to a neighbor’s house. The terrorists picked up her and the neighboring family there and deported them all to the Gaza Strip. Last Friday the girl turned four years old in captivity.
“What she had to endure is unimaginable,” said US President Joe Biden. According to her relatives, the girl will now live with her siblings with her aunt, uncle and grandparents in Israel.
Since Friday, 58 of the approximately 240 hostages held by Hamas have been released.