Abigail Edan was three years old when she saw Hamas murder her parents in cold blood right in front of her eyes. She was later taken prisoner. She survived starvation in filthy conditions and was released after 50 days. She was one of the youngest prisoners of Hamas.
When she returned to Israel, she was reunited with her brother and sister. Now the children, who live with extended family in Israel, are recovering from the traumas they experienced and re-establishing family ties.
Abigail, who has dual US-Israeli citizenship, was the youngest hostage released by Hamas in November. She met her aunt Liron and grandmother Shlomit at an air base in Israel. She was later reunited with other relatives at Schneider Children’s Hospital near Tel Aviv, where doctors said she was doing remarkably well.
Her release was celebrated around the world. “Thank God he’s home. I wish I was there to hold her,” Biden said at the time.
Meeting with Biden
On Wednesday, Biden actually hugged her when Abigail and her family spent more than an hour with him at the White House. She made her way to the South Lawn, where she swung on a massive swing set by President Barack Obama installed for his young daughters. “She played in the Oval Office. She went outside and was on the swing and playing in the playground,” a White House official said of the meeting.
Biden posted a photo of himself holding Abigail in the Oval Office. “Her family texted me saying she was going home and said, ‘You know, I love Joe Biden,’” Biden told reporters after the meeting.
The president also released a second photo with himself, Abigail and her siblings and cousins standing in the Oval Office in front of the Resolute Table.
He wrote: “Last year we secured the release of Abigail, a four-year-old girl held by Hamas. She is remarkable and recovering from unspeakable trauma. Our time together yesterday was a reminder of the work we have ahead of us to secure the release of all remaining hostages.”
Abigail’s family was one of the first victims of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th. That day, Hamas militants attacked Kibbutz Kfar Aza, about two miles from the Gaza border, and they killed her parents, 43-year-old Roy Edan and 40-year-old Smadara Edan.
Roy Edan, a photographer for the Israeli news site Ynet, took some of the first photographs of the attack. When he was shot held Abigail.
In capture
Abigail’s siblings, brother Michael, 10, and sister Amalya, 6, locked themselves in a closet and hid in it for 14 hours. They survived and were reunited with family soon after the attack.
But Abigail had to crawl from under her father’s lifeless body, covered in blood, to her neighbors’ house. The Brodutch family took her in when Hamas massacred the kibbutz. All five – Abigail, Hagar Brodutch and her three children – then disappeared.
Abigail’s extended family in Israel feared the worst – that she had been killed along with her parents. But later her name appeared on the hostage list alongside those of the Brodutch family.
“She was eating and drinking and so happy to be with her family and her siblings,” river her relative Liz Hirschová Naftaliová. She noticed that Abigail didn’t talk much about what happened during those 50 days in Gaza.
The Brodutch family was also released with Abigail. “They were moved several times. It is not clear exactly where and how they were moved, but they were not in one place. It was infested with insects. No child had adequate food for 50 days. We are slowly finding out, these are the things that they have shared with us,” she concluded.