Tears, tantrums, weather, and accidents in the potty. Any parent may relate to these childhood struggles. However, when Doron Katz Asher and her two small girls were held captive in Hamas, the ordinary caprices of children assumed an altogether terrifying significance. Militants would pound on the door of the room where she was being confined if the girls screamed. She didn't always have something to feed them when they were hungry. She watched over her girls while she slept, always keeping one eye open. "Fear was what I felt. Fear that perhaps because my girls are weeping and making noise, they'll receive a command from above to take them, to do something to them," Katz Asher said in a long interview that aired on Israel Channel 12 TV on Saturday night.
Her story adds to the increasing body of liberated prisoners recounting their terrifying experiences of weeks held captive, while about 129 hostages are still held captive. On October 7, Hamas assaulted the peaceful agricultural hamlet of Kibbutz Nir Oz when Katz Asher, 34, and her children Raz, 4, and Aviv, 2, were visiting relatives. After being loaded onto a tractor, Katz Asher, her daughters, and her mother were taken to Gaza. She stated in the interview that her mother was killed and that she and Aviv suffered minor injuries after a gunfight that broke out between the extremists who had abducted them and Israeli soldiers.
They were among the roughly 240 individuals kidnapped that day, the fate of whom has shocked and affected Israelis. Katz Asher said that after arriving in Gaza, she and her kids were brought to a family's apartment, where her wounds were treated on a couch without the use of anesthetics while her daughters watched. Did she say if Aviv received treatment? The home's father claimed to have studied Hebrew while working in Israel years ago and was able to speak it. For the sixteen days they were detained at the house, they were guarded by a Palestinian woman and her two daughters.
They were given coloring pencils and paper and instructed to remain silent as they spent the time sketching. Katz Asher revealed that she began teaching her 4-year-old Hebrew handwriting. She started by teaching "aba," which is short for "dad." The noises of the Israeli military's intense bombing campaign surrounded them while her kidnappers gave her false optimism, claiming a deal for their release was close to being reached. Eventually, in late November, a brief cease-fire accord would set her and her girls free.
