After Keith and Adrienne (known as Aviva) Siegel were dragged off to Gaza by Hamas gunmen on 7 October, the couple’s four children sat down with their own children, aged three to nine, to try to explain the calamity that had fallen on their grandparents.
“How do you tell children that someone can just come and grab you out of your home, your safe place? It’s every child’s worst nightmare, and this nightmare came true,” said Yuval Baron, the Siegels’ son-in-law and uncle to the five grandchildren.
“We try to keep them away from the horrors but still somehow explain to them the situation, and share with them our hope. But it’s very difficult.”
The Siegels, aged 64 and 62, woke up to the sound of sirens on the morning of 7 October. Grabbing a phone, they rushed to their safe room in their pyjamas, expecting to be there for 10 minutes or so. The couple have lived at Kfar Aza, a kibbutz close to the frontier with Gaza, for almost 40 years and they were “used to rockets and missiles flying about”, said Baron.
The Siegels kept in touch with the family over WhatsApp, explaining they had been advised in a message on the kibbutz’s WhatsApp group not to speak aloud and warning that their battery was running low. At about 10am, the messages stopped.
“We were getting more information about what was going on – there were terrorists on the kibbutz slaughtering people. But we had no idea about Keith and Aviva; we were in the dark,” said Baron.
When the Israeli military finally regained control of the kibbutz after about 30 hours, there was no trace of the Siegels. “We started thinking we had two very bad options – either they were kidnapped or killed.”
Later, the Israeli authorities confirmed to the family that the couple were among 220 people being held hostage in Gaza.
“That was 18 days ago, and since then nothing, zero, nada,” said Baron, who lives in the north of Israel. “We don’t know if they are together or if they have their medication. We are running out of tears, running out of hope.”
Aviva, a kindergarten teacher, and Keith, who works for a pharmaceutical company, are “very modest, very simple people”, said Baron. “The thing they love most is their family, and we need them back.”
The release of four hostages in the past few days has given some hope to the Siegel family. “Four people have come out alive, but that’s out of 220. We need to act faster, we need to do more. And the abductions were done by many groups – the story of one hostage doesn’t necessarily apply to others.
“We feel the state of Israel is very focused on bringing down Hamas, rather than bringing our loved ones back. The hostages should be the top priority for Israel and the entire world.
“Imagine it was your daughter or son or grandparents. In a modern, civilised world, people don’t believe it’s possible for this to happen. We didn’t believe so too until this nightmare became our reality.”
