Here’s what we know about the Israeli citizens released on Sunday.
Avigail Idan, 4 years old
Avigail’s parents, Roy Idan, 43, and Smadar Idan, 38, were killed in Kfar Aza during the October 7 attack. Her two siblings Michael, 9, and Amelia, 6, both survived.
Avigail, who has dual Israeli and American citizenship, turned 4 while in captivity. Her name has also been spelled “Abigail” in American media. President Biden has discussed Avigail in his public remarks and expressed special gratitude for his release when he spoke to reporters Sunday before leaving for Washington from Nantucket, Massachusetts, where he celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday.
Avigail’s uncle and aunt, Amit and Tal Idan, have been caring for her siblings since the attack.
On the morning of October 7, as terrorists invaded the kibbutz, Smadar Idan was shot dead in front of her children, Tal Idan said Michael and Amelia had warned him. Roy Idan was outside the house, holding Avigail in his arms. As Michael and Amelia ran towards their father, they saw him being shot while holding their sister. They assumed she was also dead and ran back home.
Covered in her father’s blood, Avigail ran to a neighbor, her aunt said. The man brought Avigail home to hide with his wife and children, then left the house to find a gun. “Ten minutes later, when he came back, everyone had left,” Ms. Idan said.
After 14 hours of hiding in a closet with their mother’s body on the other side of a fabric partition, Michael and Amelia were rescued by an Israeli soldier and taken to their uncle’s house, Ms. Idan said.
“They’re not doing well,” she said of Michael and Amelia. “They hear the wind blowing and they tremble.”
Chen Goldstein Almog, 49; Agam Goldstein Almog, 17; Gal Goldstein Almog, 11; Tal Goldstein Almog, 9
Chen Goldstein Almog was kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza with three of her children, Agam, Gal and Tal. Her husband, Nadav Goldstein Almog, 48, and their eldest daughter, Yam, 20, were killed in the October 7 terrorist attack. Nadav and Yam, who was a soldier in the Israeli army, were buried on October 23, Chen’s birthday.
“They are doing well, in good condition and smiling,” said Inbar Goldstein, the aunt of Agam, Gal and Tal, in a statement released Sunday evening. “We will continue the fight until the last of the hostages returns to us safe and sound.”
Mr. Goldstein Almog, an executive at Kafrit Industries, a plastics manufacturer founded in Kfar Aza, was an Ironman athlete and was injured several months before the attacks in a bicycle accident. He was therefore using crutches at the time of the attacks. He grew up in Kfar Aza.
Five members of the extended Almog family were killed 20 years earlier, in October 2003, during a terrorist attack in the Israeli city of Haifa.
At a recent gathering in Tel Aviv of Kfar Aza survivors to press for the release of their hostages, David Goldstein, 73, Nadav’s father, who was in Bulgaria with other older kibbutz members on October 7, said: “What they took away from us will not come back. What can be returned must be returned.
Hagar Broduch, 40 years old; Ofri Brodutch, 10 years old; Yuval Broduch, 8 years old; Uriah Broduch, 4 years old
Hagar Brodutch was kidnapped with her three children from their home in Kfar Aza while her husband and the children’s father, Avichai Brodutch, were defending the community, he said.
Mr. Brodutch, 42, a farmer and nursing student who survived the attack, said in a recent interview that the family moved to Kfar Aza about nine years ago. Ms. Brodutch has worked as a community manager and business leader.
Their daughter, Ofri, loves British rock music and, Mr. Brodutch said, had just received a guitar for her birthday days before she was kidnapped. Yuval loves barbecues, football and Minecraft on his X-box, while Uriah, who often plays football with his brother, is a fan of the French football team Paris Saint-Germain.
A week after the attack, Mr. Brodutch began standing vigil alone outside the military and government headquarters in Tel Aviv to raise awareness of his plight and that of other families of the missing. He said he felt at the time that the country was more focused on revenge against Hamas than freeing the hostages. Mr. Brodutch showed up for his protest with the family dog and a homemade sign that read: “My family is in Gaza.” He was soon joined by many supporters.
“I think it changed things,” he said.
Dafna Elyakim, 15 years old; Ella Elyakim, 8 years old
Daphna and Ella were at home with their father, Noam Elyakim; his partner, Dikla Arava; and his son, Tomer, at Kibbutz Nahal Oz during the October 7 attack.
From the first hours of the attack, photos surfaced on the Telegram messaging platform of the two young girls sitting on mattresses in a location unknown to their family. A video was also broadcast: Hamas had broadcast live its attackers interrogating Mr. Elyakim, who was bleeding from the leg, and Ms. Arava, using Ms. Arava’s Facebook page to do so. Dafna, Ella and Tomer sat with the couple while the terrorists questioned them at the family home.
Mr Elyakim, Ms Arava and Tomer were killed in the attack, and Dafna and Ella were taken hostage.
The girls’ mother, Maayan Zin, said on Sunday: “After a long period of living in terrible uncertainty, my daughters are finally with me. It was 51 days during which I lived between despair and hope, between pain and optimism.
“The girls are returning to a new and complex situation, and now we have a recovery period that will take time,” their mother added.
In an interview last month, Ms. Zin called on the Israeli government to do “everything, obviously: a prisoner exchange deal, an operation, a flight back” to bring back her daughters. On Sunday, she said: “My heart will only be whole again when everyone returns home safe and sound. »
Aviva Siegel, 62 years old
Aviva Siegel, also known as Adrienne Siegel, was taken from her home in Kfar Aza where she was sheltering with her husband, Keith Siegel, 64. Born in South Africa, she immigrated to Israel with her family as a child.
Ms. Siegel, a kindergarten teacher, and Mr. Siegel, a dual Israeli-American citizen who works for a pharmaceutical company, have lived in Kfar Aza for about 40 years. Their children, who were outside the kibbutz, lost contact with them around 10 a.m. on October 7. According to Israeli media, a Hamas video surfaced on Telegram the next day, showing the couple being driven to Gaza in their own car.
Mr. Siegel is believed to still be in Gaza.
Elma Avraham, 84 years old
Elma Avraham was taken hostage at her home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, near the border with Gaza. Her home is said to be filled with sculptures, paintings and ceramics that she created.
Dr. Hagai Levine, a public health doctor who heads the medical team at the Forum for Families of Hostages and Missing Persons, told reporters this month that Ms. Avraham urgently needed several heart medications “just to survive “.
Upon her release, Ms. Avraham was flown by military helicopter directly from Gaza to the nearest Israeli hospital, Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, in serious condition, according to the Israeli military.
Roni Krivoi, 25 years old
Roni Krivoi, a Russian-Israeli, was kidnapped during the Tribe of Nova music festival near the Gaza border. Mr Krivoi worked at the outdoor rave as a member of the sound crew.
A resident of Karmiel, a town in northern Israel, he works in construction while trying to build a career in the world of music and sound.
Mr. Krivoi is the first adult hostage of Israeli nationality to be released. The Russian government and Hamas said their releases were the result of direct contacts between them and not as part of a broader prisoner exchange deal.
More than 350 rave attendees and staff were killed in Hamas-led terrorist attacks on October 7, when gunmen surrounded the venue and ambushed revelers as they ran through fields, hid in bushes, sought refuge in roadside bomb shelters, or attempted to flee by car.
Gaya Gupta reports contributed.
