Appealing to the Humanity in Terrorists

"I was kind of happy because it meant they hadn't been murdered [when her children were taken hostage into Gaza]."

"They came with cameras you know, with photographers and cameras [the Hamas terrorists invading Israel on October 7]. And we saw a movie that they take of my boy. Two big, big terrorists take him and his face is terrified and so confused and helpless. So helpless."

"My children were with their father in another shelter He was in contact with me. I started to get some messages about terrorists coming over, all over."

"And at about 8:30, I got a message from him that terrorists came into their house. They jumped from the window [to escape] and were hiding in the bush. And this was the last message I got from him."

"The last message I got from my young boy was: 'Mom, keep quiet. Keep quiet. I love  you'. This was the last message."

"He's twelve. He's twelve years old. And that day, his worst nightmare came true. They came and they take him, they force him from the house, from their safe place, from his bed in his pyjamas. It was Saturday morning, they're all in pyjamas, without shoes, without anything."

Hadas Calderon, Israeli mother, Nir Oz Kibbutz

Hadas Calderon is overcome by emotion in the ruins of her mother's home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, southern Israel, Monday, Oct. 30, 2023. The kibbutz was overran by Hamas on Oct. 7, killing or capturing a quarter of its community, including Carmela Dan, Calderon's mother 80, and niece, Noya, 12. Her children Erez, 12, Sahar, 16, and Ofer, 53, the children's father are in Gaza. Photo by Maya Alleruzzo /THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Kibbutz that was invaded along with so many others on October 7 is an agriculture village with roughly 400 inhabitants located in southern Israel, fewer than three kilometres east of the border with Gaza. Hadas Calderon woke to the sound of bombs. A familiar sound, prompting her to move to her home shelter. She survived the Hamas terror attack of last month, but her ex-husband and her two children were taken into Gaza as hostages.

Her daughter Sahahr is sixteen, her son Erez, twelve, taken hostage with their father Ofer Kalderon. Hadas's 80-year-old mother and her 12-year-old niece were also nowhere to be found. But eventually they were found, their bodies lying inside the Gaza border. Hadas lives with the knowledge that her children and their father were hunted down by the terrorists. She had received messages from them as they fled.

"I could hear them. From behind the door, I could hear them breaking my house. Smashing and hitting. Shouting and screaming and shooting, a lot of gunshots, a lot of shooting. It's unbelievable. For eight hours I hold the door shut."

"After the last message [from her son] my phone went black. I was in the dark. The army came and took me out and when I went outside, I was shocked. I look around, I can't recognize my village. It's all burned. They burned the cars, they burn the houses, they even shot dogs and cats."

"On this hell of a day, a dark day, my kibbutz was put through a massacre, a pogrom, a Holocaust."

"The terrorists came -- an army of terrorists, not just a few, but an army, very well trained, very brutal and cruel. And they went through, house by house, and murdered and butchered, and then burned the houses."

Hadas Calderon’s children, Erez, 12, and Sahahr, 16, were taken hostage, along with their father, Ofer Kalderon. Photo by Submitted

Two weeks ago the mother of two abducted children returned to the kibbutz, to the burnt home where her children and their father were taken from. According to the official count, over 100 residents of the kibbutz and fifteen foreign agricultural workers were killed in the attacks. Another 80 were abducted. Those murdered and captured in total account for half the number of villagers from the kibbutz. The walls of the remnants of Ofer Kalderon's home were daubed with graffiti identifying the al-Qassam Brigades, the 'military wing' of Hamas.

"Who is going to be there to help my boy when he has his panic attacks? Who is going to help him sleep? Who is going to help calm him? What is he doing now, one month underground in a tunnel?"

"And my daughter, Sahahr, she's so beautiful and a teenager. She likes to dress and put on jewelry, and she likes to play bass guitar. She loves to dance, and she loves animals. And we all love to laugh."

"I can't imagine what they're going through. It's really like a big nightmare that we're going through. We don't know when they will come back -- if they will come back. If they are still alive. If they eat, if they drink. If they get medicine, we don't know."

Her twelve year-old niece, Noya was staying with Calderon's mother Carmela Dan. News of their deaths came a day after a quietly hopeful celebration of Hadas Calderon's mother's 80th birthday. Noya, the twelve year-old niece, had autism. She was a Harry Potter fan. A photo of her dressed in a Harry Potter costume circulated on social media as missing, before her body was found with that of her grandmother's. Prompting J.K. Rowling to post: "Kidnapping children is despicable and wholly unjustifiable. May Noya and all hostages taken by Hamas be returned soon, safely, to their families." God wasn't listening.

Next door to Hadas Calderon's husband's house lived Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, who was released from capture on October 23. A peace activist who with others on the kibbutz helped to move sick Gazans to Israeli hospitals for treatment. When Calderon hears of people in Europe and North America tearing down posters of the kidnapped children and women, she is in disbelief. "Innocent children, innocent, pure, fragile..."

Her niece, Noya had left a phone message for her mother: "Mom, mom, I hear them. They're coming. I'm afraid. I'm afraid'."