A story getting widespread attention on social media, and on television, and not only in the United States, is that of the Berdichevsky family, who lived in Kfar Aza, the tiny kibbutz where many of the worst atrocities took place. When the Hamas murderers rode into the kibbutz on motorbikes early on the morning of October 7, the young couple, Itai and Hadar Berdichevsky, sprang into action. Hadar and Itai Berdichevsky, both 30 years old, were determined that whatever happened to them, they would fight to the last, no doubt realizing that they would soon be killed. They would make sure that their twin 10-month-old baby boys would survive. The parents’ heroism and sacrifice have even been presented on CBS News. More on this story can be found here: “Israeli twin babies found hidden and unharmed at the kibbutz where Hamas killed their parents,” by Li Cohen, CBS News, October 12, 2023:
An Israeli kibbutz just miles from the Gaza Strip was the scene of a massacre on Saturday [October 7] when Hamas terrorists attacked. Amid what officials described as a “haunting” scene, they also uncovered [sic] that twin babies less than a year old had miraculously survived — because their young parents hid them just before being murdered by the militants.
They knew that if they didn’t, their children would be killed. The mother, Hadar, having put the babies into their safe room, instead of remaining in her own shelter, emerged to fill their bottles. Her body was found in the kitchen, along with the bottles she had taken to refill. It is believed that she tried to fight, in the kitchen, before being shot to death. Meanwhile, like Hadar without a weapon, her husband Itai tried with his bare hands to fight off the killers. What damage he may have inflicted, and how long he lasted before being murdered, is not known. Here is what Hadar’s brother, Dvir Rosenfeld, told 60 Minutes: “Israeli couple who were killed protecting their twin babies from Hamas gunmen ‘were heroes,’ family says,” by Norah O’Donnell, Alicia Hastey, Adam Verdugo, Justine Redman, and Carrie Rabin, CBS News, October 13, 2023:
…Rosenfeld believes she [Hadar] was likely killed when she left her own shelter.
“I know for sure that is what happened,” Rosenfeld said. “She went out to bring the bottles because they [the IDF soldiers who first came on the scene] said that there were bottles on the floor. And when she did, they just got into her apartment.”
At that point, Hadar might have raced back to her safe room, but that would have led the Hamas murderers to seek her out, and then they would likely have found, as well, where the babies had been hidden, and murdered all of them. She chose instead to save the twins by remaining outside their safe room and battling furiously against the invaders.
Hadar’s body was found in the kitchen. Her husband, Itay Berdichevsky, was found between the beds of their 10-month-old babies, who survived.
“I know that Itay died trying to protect them,” Rosenfeld said. “And I can’t imagine what he has been through knowing his wife just got murdered, and his two sons are next to him, and he’s the only thing between the terrorists and the babies.”
The babies were at this point in their shelter, not in their beds. Their father was still fighting off, as best he could, the Hamas men in the house, knowing that his wife was already dead, and hoping to distract the Hamas terrorists from finding the babies. And he did. And he died.
For fourteen hours they [the twin baby boys] were alone, hungry, drenched in their own sweat and urine, crying uncontrollably, until finally found by the emergency rescue services..
The mass killing occurred at the Kfar Aza kibbutz, a community just a few miles from the Gaza border. Israeli officials previously said that when Israeli Defense Forces arrived at the kibbutz, they found “blood spread out in homes.”…
“Imagine the horror,” Segev tweeted. “Two terrified parents who tried with all their might to protect their children, who are now orphans.”
It’s a haunting scene: the young parents fighting desperately, unarmed, against killers, and trying to distract them from finding where their babies had been hidden. May that haunt many people in the Western world, and stiffen their resolve to support Israel unreservedly, when they are being deluged with sickening claims that Israel is to blame, Israel is a “settler colonial” and “apartheid” state, and even, among those completely demented by antisemitism, that Israel is “no better than Hamas.”