Tal Idan, her face tear-stained and exhausted but her voice unwavering, was clinging to a singular goal last week. “We are going to have a good celebration,” she said at the end of a five-day trip through Washington and New York. “I’m not giving up that we will be able to do that next Friday.”

Friday is the 4th birthday of Idan’s niece Avigail Idan, who is among the roughly 240 Israelis who were kidnapped by Hamas terrorists.

Before the attack, Tal Idan was focused on her three children and the solar-panel cleaning company that she runs with her husband in northern Israel. But on that day, her husband’s brother Roy Idan, 43, and his wife, Smadar, 38, were shot at the Kfar Azza kibbutz. Tal Idan’s life’s mission now is to raise Avigail’s siblings — Michael, 9, and Amelia, 6, both of whom survived the violence — and to help bring their sister home.

“I have a 3-year-old niece who has no parents anymore,” she said. “I’m her voice now.”

As Israelis and Palestinians wait anxiously for the implementation of a temporary cease-fire deal — in which Israel would swap 150 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the return of 50 kidnapped Israelis — Avigail’s family feels hope that she could be among the hostages freed. White House officials said on Tuesday that they expect the agreement to include the release of three Americans: two women and a toddler. Avigail is a dual Israeli and US citizen.

A day after the hostage deal was announced, Tal Idan was at home with her family, feeling anxious. “I find myself barely breathing through the last 24 hours,” she said. “Every hour that goes by feels like forever.”

On the morning of October 7, as terrorists swarmed the kibbutz, Smadar Idan was shot in front of her children, Tal Idan said she was told by Michael and Amelia. Roy Idan was outside the house, holding Avigail in his arms. As Michael and Amelia ran to their father, they watched him get shot and killed while holding their sister. They assumed she was dead too and raced back into their home.

Covered in her father’s blood, Avigail ran towards a neighbour, her aunt said. The man brought Avigail into his home to hide with his wife and children and then left the house to find a gun. “Ten minutes later, when he got back, all were gone,” Tal Idan said.

New York Times News Service