Hagar Brodutch, photographed in Toronto on May 28, and her three children were taken hostage by Hamas after the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel. They were released on Nov. 26 and are currently living in Toronto.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
Hagar Brodutch, her three young children and the daughter of a family friend were being held captive by Hamas, huddled in total darkness, when Israel’s retaliatory bombing began.
The five residents of Kfar Aza kibbutz, which is located a few kilometres from the Gaza Strip, had been taken hostage on Oct. 7 during the Hamas-led assault on Israel that killed more than 1,100 people.
Ms. Brodutch said that when the Israeli air strikes began she was fearful she and the children would be killed. After two weeks, the house where they were being held collapsed after a nearby building was struck.
“It was a nightmare,” she said in an interview this week in Toronto. They were among roughly 240 hostages taken during the attack and transported to Gaza, the Palestinian enclave that was controlled by Hamas before Israel’s subsequent invasion. Ms. Brodutch and the four children were released in November during a pause in the fighting, but according to Israel more than 30 hostages have died in the war and about 100 are still being held captive.
Ms. Brodutch said she never imagined Israel would retaliate while so many hostages were trapped in Gaza. The war has devastated the densely populated strip and killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities in Gaza.
“I think Israel has to stop everything and bring everybody back home, and that’s it,” she said. “Stop the war. I want to live in peace. I want my kids to have a normal life. They have to find a solution for us and for the Palestinians. It can’t go on like this.”
Ms. Brodutch, her husband, Avihai, and their children – 10-year-old Ofri, eight-year-old Yuval and five-year-old Uriah – are living in Toronto until the middle of July, spending time with Mr. Brodutch’s Canadian brother and telling their story to journalists and others. They were invited to the city by the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre’s Israeli Connection initiative, in partnership with the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto.
The evening before Oct. 7, Ms. Brodutch said, the family was celebrating Ofri’s 10th birthday at a restaurant. The next morning, everything changed.
They woke up to the sound of air-raid sirens, and Mr. Brodutch went outside to investigate. Usually, she said, all one sees are Israel’s air defences at work. This time, Mr. Brodutch saw Hamas fighters paragliding into Israeli territory. He yelled that terrorists were coming from the sky.
Ms. Brodutch, her husband Avihai Brodutch (pictured) are living in Toronto until the middle of July, spending time with Mr. Brodutch’s Canadian brother. They can't return to their home on a kibbutz in Israel in the immediate future.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
Ms. Brodutch said she hurried her children into a safe room. Her husband, who is a member of the community’s civil guard, raced to put on his uniform. He was leaving for the local armoury when he heard a gentle knock. Ms. Brodutch said the person at the door was her husband’s best friend’s daughter, three-year-old Avigail Idan, covered in blood. Her parents had been killed.
Ms. Brodutch said she took Avigail in her arms, comforted her, cleaned her up and brought her to the safe room while her husband went to the building where the civil guard’s weapons were stored. Not long after, she said, Hamas militants were at their home.
“I tried to struggle and hold the door, but after a few seconds I gave up because I knew I had no chance. They opened the door, and I screamed: ‘Please don’t do anything, it’s only kids,’” she said, adding that the children came out from underneath a blanket and started to scream and cry.
The militants used Ms. Brodutch’s car to take her and the children to Gaza, she said. She recalled a short, wild drive, and Gazans cheering.
First, she said, they were taken to a family home and locked in a room with no running water, scarce electricity and little food. This, she said, was the home that collapsed.
After the building was destroyed, the group was taken to an ambulance, where they were kept for hours, Ms. Brodutch said. Then they were taken to another home, which had been abandoned. By now the kids were starving, she said. They were surviving on pita bread and zaatar or jam, she added.
She said she didn’t have much interaction with her captors, but they withheld food and told her and the children that everyone from their kibbutz had been killed, which was untrue.
Ms. Brodutch said she tried not to speak with them, and when she did she kept her head down and did not look into their eyes, fearful she would say the wrong thing. She did ask when she and the children would be released, and if negotiations were taking place. Her questions were always met with “Inshallah,” meaning “God willing.”
She was sure her husband had been killed, she said, because of what her captors had told her.
“At night I tried to imagine what our life will be without him. I just couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t imagine,” she said.
Mr. Brodutch, standing in the kitchen of the family’s Airbnb in Toronto, said the short version of the story of his survival is that Hamas militants tried very hard to kill him but didn’t manage to do so.
He said he made it to the armoury and, alongside others, fought back. Seven men were killed, he said, but he continued fighting after suffering shrapnel wounds from a rocket-propelled grenade. Ms. Brodutch now has a ring made with a small piece of shrapnel that was removed from his leg.
The kibbutz was evacuated, and the Brodutches can’t return home for the time being. They are now figuring out what to do next. The children are doing better, Ms. Brodutch said, but their youngest won’t leave her side, and the others miss their home and friends.
“We don’t have anywhere to go,” Ms. Brodutch said. “I really hope that we can find a quiet place and a safe place – and that Israel will be a safe place for my kids, everywhere in Israel. That’s what I wish.”
With a report from the Associated Press