‘Entire Family Vanished From Face Of The Earth’

Hamas militants brutally murdered a husband, wife and three children in a kibbutz in southern Israel.

Terrorists from the Palestinian group Hamas killed a family of five who lived in a kibbutz in southern Israel. Elad Strohmayer, the ex-representative of the Israeli diplomatic mission in Washington, reported this on X (formerly known as Twitter).

The Kedem family lived in the kibbutz Nir Oz in the south of the country, just 2.5 km from the border of the Gaza Strip. Armed Palestinians entered the village during the October 7 attack on Israel. According to Strohmayer, during the attack all Kedem family members “were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists”.

“An entire family vanished from the face of the earth,” the diplomat wrote.

The couple Yonatan and Tamar Kedem had 6-year-old twins Shachar and Arbel, and four-year-old son Omer.

Earlier, the BBC Russian Service, with a reference to the Israeli publication Ynet, told the story of another resident of Kibbutz Nir Oz — 84-year-old Ditza Hayman. After learning that armed Palestinians had broken into the settlement, Ditza's daughter, Daphne, spoke to her by phone shortly before 10 a.m. Saturday and made sure her mother had gone to a secure room (special shelters are found in many Israeli homes).

But after 10 am, Ditza stopped responding. Much later, after another call, the phone was picked up and the voice on the other end answered, “This is Hamas, this is Hamas.” Daphne's sister, who called back later, was told the same thing. Hayman's daughters later learned that she had left the secure room shouting “Save me!” One of the neighbors with a gun tried to help her, but was unable to. Daphne Hayman claims that an entire group of elderly residents were taken hostage in this kibbutz.

On October 7, Hamas militants launched Operation Al-Aqsa Storm — they fired several thousand rockets at Israel and broke into the country. Hamas accuses the Israeli side of occupying and “desecrating the Muslim holy site,” as well as repeated incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

The Israeli government actually declared a state of war — it activated the paragraph “40-Aleph” (40א). Thus, the army received complete freedom of action. The last time this paragraph was put into effect was 50 years ago, during the Yom Kippur War. In 48 hours, the IDF mobilized 300 thousand reservists.

On the morning of October 9, the Israel Defense Forces announced the restoration of control over all settlements on the border with the Gaza Strip.

As of the evening of October 9, at least 900 people were killed as a result of the Hamas attack on Israel, according to a report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Another 2,741 people were injured, the Israeli Ministry of Health reports.

On October 9, the militants threatened that they would begin to execute hostages in the event of Israeli attacks on residential buildings in the Gaza Strip.