RELEASED: Mother Chen & kids Agam, Gal and Tal Goldstein-Almog; father & daughter killed
Father Nadav and eldest daughter Yam were murdered in Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7
Chen Goldstein-Almog, 48, and three of her four children, Agam, 17, Gal, 11 and Tal, 9 were released on November 26 as part of a temporary ceasefire deal brokered by Qatar and the United States between Hamas and Israel. Father Nadav and eldest daughter Yam were murdered. This is the story of their capture:
Chen Goldstein-Almog, 48, and three of her four children, Agam, 17, Gal, 11 and Tal, 9, have been missing since October 7, when they were taken captive from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, as Hamas terrorists launched a vicious attack on their community.
Chen’s husband, Nadav Goldstein-Almog, and their eldest daughter, Yam Goldstein-Almog, were killed on the same day, in the safe room of their home.
Chen’s brother, Omri Almog, told The Times of Israel that Chen and the three kids were taken hostage, but her husband, Nadav and eldest daughter, Yam, remained in their house as Nadav, a serious triathlete, was recovering from surgery following a riding accident and couldn’t move easily.
At around 12 p.m., the family lost contact with Yam, the only one who had a phone in the sealed room and had been sending WhatsApps to anyone she could, said her uncle.
Several days later, the bodies of Nadav and Yam were found. For the next nine days, the rest of the family was considered missing, until their status was later changed to captive.
“We don’t know exactly what happened in their house,” said Omri Almog. “The kibbutz became a battlefield.”
The family’s two sets of grandparents, the Almogs and the Goldsteins, both live on Kfar Aza, but were abroad on a kibbutz roots trip.
They and the extended family were the ones who ended up burying Nadav and Yam on October 23, Chen’s birthday.
It’s not the first time that the Almog family was struck by terrorism. In October 2003, five members of the Almog family were killed during a suicide bombing attack at the Maxim restaurant in Haifa.
Another relative in the extended family is Doron Almog, chairman of the Jewish Agency and former head of the Southern Command.
“We’re a family that pays a very high price for this country,” said Omri Almog. “You don’t get used to it but you live with it.”
His family, he said, whatever is left of it, will eventually return to Kfar Aza and rebuild what was lost.
“Chen, my sister, is a widow, a bereaved mother and kidnapped with three kids in Gaza,” said Almog. “That’s her status, if she knows. I believe she does. She left the house, she saw what was happening.”
