A year after she was taken hostage, Israeli girl adapts to new family life

This content was published on October 4, 2024 - 16:04

2 minutes

By Eli Berlzon and Michal Yaakov Itzhaki

BNEI DROR, Israel (Reuters) – Israeli couple Leron and Zoli Mor have identical tattoos on their arms showing a procession of eight elephants, their tails and trunks intertwined.

The first two are the parents and the six smaller ones behind them are the calves. The last three are even smaller than the rest, and are depicted in fresher ink because they were added later.

The eight elephants represent the Mor family. Leron and Zoli Mor have three children of their own, and have adopted three others whose parents – one of them Leron’s sister – were killed in the attack by Hamas gunmen on Israel on Oct. 7 last year.

“They were five,” Leron Mor said at the family’s new home in the northern Israeli village of Bnei Dror, pointing to that tattoo on her arm. “And they were joined by three more.”

One of the three who were adopted, Avigail Idan, was among more than 250 people taken hostage during the attack led by the Palestinian militant group. She was released last November though about 100 people are still in captivity as the Israel-Hamas war triggered by the attack rages on.

She was aged three at the time of the attack, in which her parents were among 1,200 people killed. Her older siblings, Michael and Amalia, hid in a cabinet at their home in a kibbutz, their mother lying lifeless on the floor nearby.

The Mors were also living in the kibbutz in southern Israel at the time and were rescued from their home the day after the attack. They now live far away in Bnei Dror, an agriculture village near the Mediterranean coast.

“The conversation here in the house is very open. We talk about their parents. We do not forget about them for one moment,” said Leron Mor. “We look at pictures together. And they are present in our lives.”

Avigail also has U.S. citizenship, and she and the family met U.S. President Joe Biden in the White House in April.

“He was simply compassionate and warm and caring,” Leron Mor said. “We spoke to him about the people, our friends, who are still there and all the hostages. We asked him to make every effort to get them out, because that’s the only important thing right now. There is nothing more important than that.”