Abigail Mor Edan has a cheeky smile and a head full of curls. Her bright eyes sparkle in almost every picture of her.
But those eyes hide some very dark memories.
Memories of seeing her mother killed, being held by her father when he was murdered, and then after seeking refuge at her friend’s home, being taken hostage into Gaza by Hamas terrorists.
Her brother and sister hid in a closet, their mother’s body lying mere metres away from them, for 14 hours until they were finally rescued.
At first, Abigail’s family thought she had been murdered in her father’s arms.
After all, that’s what her siblings, Michael (then nine) and Amalia (then six) saw as they all attempted to run to safety. What the family didn’t know, though, is that while Michael and Amalia ran back to their home – the place where they felt safest – little Abigail ran to another home where she felt safe, the home of her friend, Uriah Brodutch.
From there, Abigail, along with Uriah, his siblings Ofri and Yuval, and his mother Hagar, was taken into Gaza as a hostage. Hagar then spent 51 days making sure the four children in her care were safe.
“Hope is an adjective, a verb, a noun. It is what we all need to keep inside of us…”
“[Hagar] was with Abigail as if she was her fourth child, hugging her in silence, loving her without food, taking care of her without hygiene,” Abigail’s great-aunt, Liz Hirsh Naftali told The AJN. “She took care of Abigail like one of her own. And with this belief that her husband and her community were gone, she gave hope to all these children. So no matter how horrible it was, because Abigail knew her parents were killed that day – three years old, she knew she saw – Hagar gave her what I call she saved her soul that day. And she saved Abigail’s soul for 51 days. So when Abigail was released, she’d been loved amidst the horror.”
Hirsh Naftali woke up in Tel Aviv on the morning of October 7 to sirens. She was in Israel to visit her family, including her daughter who lives there, and to celebrate Simchat Torah. But, by the following day, while the IDF was still battling to regain control of the border communities, Hirsh Naftali returned to the USA in a state of shock.
“I knew I had to go and do something to help them, but it wasn’t going to be physically in Israel,” she recalled. “I think about that plane ride, and I looked around and everyone was sort of in my position, which was we were leaving something we didn’t want to leave, but we had to leave. And I just remember looking around and thinking, we were all just numb. I still get chills thinking about all of that.”
The US-based businesswoman and now hostage-advocate, at that stage, believing that Abigail had been killed along with her parents, thought there was no one to save. But she knew she had an important mission – to make sure October 7 couldn’t be erased from history.
And then, she found out Abigail was alive.
“I became a new person,” she writes in her book, Saving Abigail. “Now there was something to do. Now there was someone to save.”
So that’s what she did.
Securing Abigail’s release involved countless hours of meetings with leaders from both sides of Congress and speaking to numerous media outlets. At every appointment, Hirsh Naftali handed every individual a picture of the little girl with her corkscrew curl.
“I remember looking at this face, in her eyes, and just thinking ‘I’m going to bring you home’,” Hirsh Naftali told The AJN.
She was always touched when people she met again would pull that picture from their wallets to show her how close they had been keeping Abigail’s story. People like Senator Susan Collins.
“One of the things that we forget sometimes, is that our political leaders are women and men that have struggles like we all do, and lives. So what I understood from this was that there was Susan Collins, a woman I had never met before, working as Abigail’s aunty. But really, truly working and trying to help all the women, the children and all of the hostages,” Hirsh Naftali said.
“She saved her soul that day. And she saved Abigail’s soul for 51 days.”
Hirsh Naftali knew she had to keep sharing Abigail’s story, because people relate to people.
“When people could relate, it didn’t matter what their political position was, or their religion. It brought them in as humans,” she said.
For 51 days, Hirsh Naftali campaigned for Abigail’s release, as well as all other 250 hostages.
“The thing that I kept holding onto is that the majority of people are good and they care… but they don’t generally make it into the press,” Hirsh Naftali said. “The press wants to cover anger and hate, but the love, it doesn’t have that same piece. But if I could say one thing, it’s that in the darkness and in all of this terrible year and a half that we’ve gone through, the amount of people and their love and support for myself and other families has been really incredible.”
Time and time again, Hirsh Naftali stood with American and other hostage families, meeting leaders from all levels, from all sides and from numerous countries. She used her voice and Abigail’s story to advocate for those who had been silenced. And what’s incredible is that she continues to do so today, more than 500 days after Abigail came home.
Hirsh Naftali shares in her book that every time she spoke to her sister-in-law, Abigail’s grandmother Shlomit, the question was always asked: Are you going to bring Abigail home? Hirsh Naftali would always answer with a simple ‘yes’.
She didn’t know how or whether it was even possible, but she had to keep that hope alive for Shlomit and for the rest of Abigail’s family.
When asked how she held onto that hope, Hirsh Naftali said she had no choice.
“There was no time not to be hopeful. Hope is an adjective, a verb, a noun. It is what we all need to keep inside of us,” she said. “The minute you lose hope, then you have despair, and despair does not get us anywhere. And the minute you let hate take over hope, we go back to what happened on October 7th.”
Hirsh Naftali explained that she woke up every morning and asked what she could do, and each night when she went to bed, she’d ask herself what else she could have done.
Hirsh Naftali continues to campaign for the remaining hostages. Having become close with Edan Alexander’s family, she was overjoyed to see him reunited with his parents and siblings recently. But, she said, she still can’t stop. And she draws her inspiration from Abigail.
Describing little three-year-old Abigail – a little girl who picked herself up, covered in her father’s blood, and ran to find a safe place after seeing both of her parents murdered – as exceptionally resilient, Hirsh Naftali said “why not I?”.
“I think even today, with 58 hostages, after 585 days, we all can do more,” she said. “Every place I go, I talk about how we all can do more. Now, if it’s for the hostages, please join us. But if you have something you’re passionate about, don’t sit back, go and fight for it. You see an injustice, go and fight for it. And I think that that, to me, is the message of what we can do.”
Hirsh Naftali explained that until the hostages are home, no one can move on. Not the families, not the communities, not the nation of Israel and not the diaspora of Jews. Brodutch and the children were, for some time, held with Emily Damari, who was released in January. Hirsh Naftali said that until Emily was home, Abigail knew that she was missing, as did Hagar’s daughter Ofri who formed a special bond with her.
“Until she knew Emily was home, she had that open wound. And that just tells you a little bit about the relationships, and the people and their care … The 58 people that haven’t come home, their families can’t move forward. And I say the nation of Israel cannot move forward, and I say the diaspora of Jews. But I say humanity, human beings. We can’t simply move forward. We need them to come home.”
For Hirsh Naftali, it’s crucial that we keep telling the stories of those who have been murdered, those who have come home, and those we are still waiting for. And, we need to make sure that it’s safe for the children of Israel, the children of the region and the children of the world.
“I truly believe this is that moment. It’s a moral moment. It is not a ‘one religion’; it’s about all religion. It’s about all people. What do we want our world to be like for the children?” she asked. “I want your children, Abigail and all the children living in Gaza, living in the region, living here in Australia, to have a life that isn’t going to be about war and hate. So for me, this is about how do we share love, how do we share heart and humanity, and how do we move forward?”
As for how Abigail is doing now… While Hirsh Naftali said it’s too soon to see the long-term impacts of Abigail’s captivity, she said she’s a delightful little girl who continues to inspire those around her.
“Abigail is this beautiful five-year-old who loves to draw, she loves to dance, she loves to eat french fries. She has lots of friends,” Hirsh Naftali explained. “You look at her, and I say, you wouldn’t know what she went through, but she knows very much that she was in Gaza. She knows what happened… but she’s still going out there and taking chances, and going out there and doing fun things. She’s breathing life into everyone.”
Saving Abigail is available to purchase on Amazon, amzn.to/4jX0iEv
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