Kibbutzim are small, communal, family-based agricultural communities that were central to the construction of Israel. Many are located near Gaza and the surprise attack by Hamas on October 7 hit them hard.
The Haran-Kipnis-Shoham-Avigdori family, from Kibbutz Be’eri, however, alone has seven of its members held hostage by Hamas in Gaza out of the two hundred believed in total. (Israel neither confirms nor denies the list of hostages, and largely depends on the public denunciation of the relatives themselves in forums such as Bring them home now.)
At first, in fact, those held in this family were believed to be ten. But on October 17, the Italian authorities confirmed the death of Eviatar Moshe Kipnis, 65 years old and of Italian and Israeli nationality. Just a couple of days ago, that of his wife, the also Italian-Israeli Liliach Lea Havron Kipnis, 60, was confirmed. His caregiver, Paul Vincent Castelvi, of Filipino origin, has also died. His wife is eight months pregnant. The BBC also confirms the death of Liliach’s brother-in-law, Avshalom Haran, 66.
However, nothing is known about Shoshan Haran, Liliach’s sister and Avshalom’s wife, 67 years old. Neither of Adi Shoham, daughter of Shoshan and Avshalom, 38 years old, nor of her husband, Tal Shoham, 38. Nor of her children Naveh, only eight years old, nor of Yahel, three. Sharon Avigdori, Avshalom’s sister, 52, and her son Noam, 12, are also among those held captive by Hamas militants in the Strip.
All of them are grandparents, parents, brothers, nephews, uncles or cousins ??who live in Be’eri. Sharon and Noam, on the other hand, were visiting their grandparents because they live near Tel Aviv, as explained by Sharon’s husband, a screenwriter, who did not go on vacation to the south as he stayed at home with her other teenage son.
Shoshan founded an NGO, Fair Planet, to fight hunger and worked mainly with farmers in Africa. Liliach was a social worker and dealt with people with post-traumatic stress disorder. Avoiding was also voluntary. Sharon is a psychologist specializing in people with special needs. Shoshan’s son, a 34-year-old lawyer who grew up in Kibbutz Be’eri but now lives in Beersheba, has told local media that his family was committed to peace and many were activists in peace organizations.
The coup thus affects three generations of the same family who, in addition, like so many others in the kibbutz, carry with them the mark of the Second World War: the grandparents are survivors of the Holocaust. Shoshan, Avshalon and Adi have German and Israeli nationality. And Eviatar and Italian Liliach. They are also part of the pioneers who laid the first stones of the now attacked Kibbutz Be’eri, which had recently come of age.
And Be’eri, due to its location very close to Gaza, was one of the first communities to suffer the Hamas attack. Shira Havron, a film student at Tel Aviv University, a relative, explains to The Jerusalem Post that they lost contact with them on the morning of the 7th and that they only know for sure – from official sources – that Adi, Tal and their two children are hostages. Such, in fact, would have been caught in a car with other kidnapped people. In the case of the rest there are doubts, but although their houses were destroyed by fire, the shelter was intact and empty and they managed to locate a family telephone in the Gaza Strip.
