RELEASED: Doron Katz-Asher and daughters Raz and Aviv, freed from Gaza
Grandmother Efrat Katz was killed and her partner Gadi Mozes captured in Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7
Doron Katz-Asher and daughters Raz, 5, and Aviv, 2, were released on November 24 as part of a temporary ceasefire deal brokered by Qatar and the United States between Hamas and Israel. This is the story of their capture:
The last image Yoni Asher has of his wife, Doron, and his two “flowers,” daughters Raz, 5, and Aviv, 2, along with Doron’s mother, Efrat Katz, 69, is from a video taken of them on the back of a Hamas pickup truck being driven into Gaza.
“If you wondered what the gates of hell are like, this is it,” said Asher in a Channel 12 interview.
The last time Asher spoke with his wife was in the early morning hours of October 7, when she told them they were going into the sealed room of her mother’s house in Nir Oz.
There were five of them in the room, Asher’s wife Doron and the two little girls, her mother Efrat and Efrat’s partner, Gadi Mozes. Asher had remained behind at their home in a town near Netanya, not joining them on the visit down south.
Doron told Asher that she heard terrorists entering the house, along with the sounds of gunshots outside. Gadi, grandmother Efrat’s partner, went out of the sealed room, where he was taken by the terrorists.
That was the last phone conversation Asher had with them, as he told them to stay locked in the sealed room, no one having any idea there were so many terrorists invading the kibbutz.
Hours later, Asher tracked Doron’s phone to a location in Gaza. His father then found a video showing the four family members, grandmother Efrat, mom Doron, and daughters Raz and Aviv, being driven, crowded onto the flatbed of a pickup truck, into Gaza.
“I could identify them right away,” said Asher. “My two little girls, my wife, my mother-in-law.”
Asher found out later that his wife’s mother, Efrat Katz, had been killed.
Asher’s wife and mother have German citizenship, and he’s been trying to leverage that connection.
“I’ve asked German chancellor Olaf Scholz to get involved,” he told Channel 12. “I want to hear his voice. They promised never again, so they should fulfill that.”
Asher called this “the battle of his life,” and while he credited the Israeli government and army for doing what they can, “this is an international event,” he said.
Asher mentioned that Doron’s grandmother — his daughters’ great-grandmother and his mother-in-law’s mother — died recently at 100.
“I’m happy she didn’t see this second Holocaust,” he said.
