It was Yoni Asher’s phone that confirmed his worst fears.
Tracking his wife Doron’s mobile, he watched helplessly as he saw it pop up in southern Gaza, miles from where she was supposed to be with their daughters Raz, five, and Aviv, aged three.
They had been taken hostage, along with scores of others, by Hamas militants in their devastating weekend attack.
“I saw she had been taken into Kfar Younis which is deep inside Gaza,” Yoni told The Independent, his voice blank with grief. “The GPS even showed us the route the terrorists took.”
Moments earlier, the real estate agent had seen a viral video showing terrified Israeli women and children crammed in the back of a jeep being driven into Gaza, as Palestinian militants shouted “God is great!”
Among them was 34-year-old Doron, doing her best to protect their children.
“I saw her with her head covered with a cloth by Hamas and my daughters on some kind of cart,” said the distraught father. “I recognised that area and my kids.”
Alongside his wife was his mother-in-law Efrat, believed to be part of 130 hostages the Palestinian militants claim to be holding.
Speaking from their family home in central Israel, Yoni is interrupted by the red alert signalling rocket sirens – a pertinent reminder of the background to this mess.
But once it was safe to leave the shelter he explains what happened that day.
“I am speaking because I just want the world to take a good hard look at my family photos and realise that these two women and my two baby girls are now this moment being held by terrorists,” he said.
“You cannot imagine what a parent could be thinking right now and what is going through my mind.”
The nightmare unfolded on Saturday when Doron took their girls to visit her mother at a kibbutz at Nir Oz, just a few kilometres from Gaza during the Jewish holiday marking the end of Sukkot.
“On Saturday morning I received a call from my wife visiting her mother Efrat and her partner Gadi in the kibbutz,” he said.
“I was at home in central Israel and we got news that the Palestinians were firing rockets over there and there was an invasion. My wife was whispering.”
The family did not know but as many as 1,000 Palestinian militants, loyal to Hamas, had breached the border fences and were targeting Israel from land, air and sea.
They stormed a music festival killing over 250 people and taking multiple hostages, according to witnesses and families of the missing who spoke to The Independent.
Yoni Asher’s mother-in-law Efrat, with her partner— (Supplied)
They also went around local communities, attacking homes.
They came to Nir Oz and surrounded the house. Doron, her mother and the two girls barricaded themselves inside the family bomb shelter.
“Apparently Gadi had tried to negotiate with them, maybe offer himself up in exchange for the children but they took him. I hung up as I didn’t want to put them in danger, that was the last I ever heard from them.”
Later he was sent the TikTok clip of his wife, which confirmed his worst fears. Yoni says he and a neighbour were able to track his wife’s phone on her laptop via Google.
“I am 100 per cent sure with the phone and that video that they are kidnapped,” he said. “We were living in an illusion. We were never as safe as we thought we were, but I do trust our leadership to make things right. I am waiting for their homecoming.”
