On October 7, Israeli social workers spent 12 hours comforting two terrified children who had been hiding from Hamas terrorists in a tiny closet, inches from their mother’s body.
Roy Mor Edan, 43, a photojournalist and father of three, left his home in Kfar Aza at around 6:30 a.m. Hamas paraglider photographed.
Unbeknownst to him, terrorists had entered his house and shot dead his wife, Smadar, 40, in front of their three children.
Mol Edan’s son Michael, 9, called his father for help, and he rushed home, picked up his youngest daughter, Abigail, and fled with his two other children.
Hamas lay in wait outside: they shot and killed Mor Edan and took four-year-old Abigail hostage.
Michael and Amelia, 6, rushed back to the bedroom where their mother’s body lay and hid in the closet.
With hundreds of terrorists swarming the kibbutz and police overwhelmed trying to rescue the children, volunteer emergency service United Hatzalah stepped in after a distraught aunt posted on Facebook pleading for help for her niece and nephew.
Dr. Tamar Shezinger, a social worker with a PhD and volunteer who works at United Hatzalah’s trauma response unit, “Hozen,” which means “resilience” in Hebrew, made contact with the children at 9:30 a.m.
“I’m scared! Please come help!” little Amelia pleaded in a heartbreaking audio provided to The Washington Post by a group of brave volunteers.
“My mommy and daddy are dead because they got shot,” the 6-year-old girl says in the heartbreaking exchange.
Schesinger assured the children that help was on the way and that she would not abandon them.
“I didn’t realize it would take 12 hours,” she recalls.
At 10 a.m., Michael reported that people were knocking on his door, claiming to be IDF soldiers who had come to rescue them.
“Don’t open the door. Don’t open the door,” Schesinger warned.
“Every fiber of my being knew this was a terrorist,” she later recalled.
At 11:15 a.m., Schezinger asked Michael to get a phone charger from another room so they could continue their conversation, but to do so he would have to walk past his mother’s body and risk being seen by Hamas outside.
The boy bravely accepted the task, and while waiting for Michael to return, Schesinger began to panic when he heard what appeared to be a terrorist in the car.
“Oh, no … I can hear … some words being spoken,” Schezinger said.
“I got them,” Michael finally replied after a heart-pounding few minutes.
“Michael, there’s no bigger hero than you. You’re a true champion,” Schezinger told him.
At 1:24 pm, Hamas kicked down the front door and entered the house, but the terrorists never checked the closets.
“Their mother is still taking care of them,” Schezinger said of the miracle.
At 8 p.m., Schezinger received information that was key to rescuing the children: the children’s mother was an Israeli Shin Bet agent who had informed the Shin Bet that Smadar was dead and that the children were in grave danger.
Finally, at 9:50 p.m., Schesinger gave the kids permission to open the door.
“Michael, this is a soldier. My mother’s friend,” she told him.
Schezinger knew that to effectively help children, “I had to distance myself from my emotions and not feel anything.”
“When the military rescued them, I could only cry.”
Abigail was released in November.
The children’s uncle, Zoli Mol, 52, who adopted the three children with his wife Liron, 45, said they were slowly but surely recovering from the trauma they had suffered.
“We are so grateful for what Dr. Schezinger did that day,” he said. “Words can’t express how grateful we are.”
