The youngest, Aviv Asher, is only two years old. The oldest, Yafa Aadar, 85. They are two of the 13 Israelis released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners of the Jewish state.
Aviv was released along with her four-year-old sister Raz and mother Doron. The three, who have dual German nationality, were recognized by their husband and father Yoni in a video that showed them being loaded onto a truck with other hostages. They had been kidnapped by Doron’s family in Niz Or. The last time Yoni had spoken to his wife, she had told him that they were entering the sealed room in his mother Efrat’s house to hide. Unfortunately, Efrat didn’t make it. I would “hug” the kidnapper and beg him for mercy, Yoni said in an interview.
Now he can finally hold his family in his arms.
“They promised to free us all. Instead, we carry with us your political, security, military and diplomatic failures,” 45-year-old Daniel Aloni shouted against Netanyahu in a video released by Hamas in late October. Now she and her daughter Emilia, 6, have been released. They were originally from Yavneh and were also kidnapped while at a party in Nir Oz.
And now Ohad Munder, the little boy whose birthday was October 23rd, can finally celebrate his ninth birthday at home. The family had asked to celebrate the day by hanging balloons in solidarity with the hostages. His mother Keren (54) and his grandmother Ruthie (78) were also released. They were all on Kibbutz Nir Oz when they were kidnapped.
Among those released by Hamas are some elderly women. Adina Moshe, 72, was identified by her family in a video after her husband Said Moshe was killed in Nir Oz. The last time the family spoke to her, shots were heard outside the door. Hanna Katzir, the 77-year-old whom Islamic Jihad declared dead a few days ago, is also free. Hanna, mother of three and grandmother of six grandchildren, had been kidnapped by Nir Oz while her husband was killed. The woman appeared in a video on November 9 in which she was filmed in a wheelchair and Jihad had discussed the possibility of being released on humanitarian grounds, only to spread the false news of her death.
Margalit Mozes, 78, was also recognized in a video of her being abducted from her home on the same kibbutz. She also suffers from serious health problems. Like the Asher family, he has dual German citizenship. The news of the kidnapping of Hannah Peri, 79, and her son Nadav Popplewell, 51, was spread by her daughter Ayelet Svatitzky. Svatitzky had tried to warn her over the phone that Hamas had infiltrated Kibbutz Nirim, where she grew up and where her mother, originally from South Africa, still lives.
Ayelet heard a man’s voice in the background, hung up and called her brother Nadav, whose house is near her mother’s house. But the Hamas men had already arrived here too. The next message was a photo sent from his mother’s phone, showing the woman in her pajamas in her living room next to her son. The message read: “Hamas.”
Finally, Yafa Adar, 85 years old, the oldest woman in the group, who was also kidnapped in Nir Oz, is also free. A video went viral showing her being transported to Gaza on board a vehicle surrounded by Palestinians. She seemed almost calm, with a pink blanket on her lap.
Her granddaughter Adva Adar recognized her when she wrote on X that her grandmother had founded a kibbutz “with her own hands.” Among the many missing people is the youngest of the hostages, who recently turned ten months old: Kfir Bibas is still in the hands of Hamas.
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