Boy is born on Independence Day, 1 year after his brother was killed by Gaza rocket

A year after a five-year-old boy was killed by a rocket fired from Gaza, his mother gave birth to another son on Israel’s Independence Day on Thursday.

Shani Avigal gave birth at the Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon. Her son, Ido, was killed in a rocket attack that hit their home in Sderot, on May 12, 2021, at the start of an 11-day conflict between Israel and Gaza terror groups.

Shani and her 7-year-old daughter were both also seriously wounded in the rocket attack that killed Ido.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett congratulated the Avigal family, wishing them “great happiness.”

“The people of Israel live,” he said, using a Hebrew adage.

A day earlier, Bennett had tweeted that Avigal was pregnant and that he was praying for a healthy birth.

The newborn boy’s traditional Jewish circumcision will be held on May 12, exactly a year after Ido was killed, the Ynet website reported.

שנה אחרי שאיבדה את בנה עידו מפגיעת רקטה במבצע "שומר בחומות", שני אביגל ילדה בן ביום העצמאות

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מזל טוב ????????❤️ pic.twitter.com/AHIkmyqMl2

— רובי .ב (@ribi770) May 5, 2022

In February, when Ido would have celebrated his sixth birthday, Shani held a party for Sderot children, the Kan public broadcaster reported.

At the time, Shani explained to the station that the day was “a very moving date” on which she was “celebrating his life, the life that he lived.”

Six months ago the family moved from Sderot, near Gaza, to a community close to Kiryat Malachi, also in the south of the country.

Ido Avigal was killed by a piece of shrapnel that penetrated the fortified glass window of the family’s bomb shelter.

During the eleven days of fighting last year, dubbed Operation Guardian of the Walls, terror groups in Gaza, led by Hamas, fired thousands of rockets at Israeli towns and cities. Israel responded with intense airstrikes.