Taken captive: Tal Shoham, held captive separately from family

Tal Shoham, 38, was taken hostage by Hamas terrorists on October 7 from Kibbutz Be’eri when some 3,000 Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and murdered 1,200 — mostly civilians — and took about 240 hostages to Gaza.

Shoham was kidnapped along with his wife, Adi Shoham, his daughter, Yahel, 3, and son, Naveh, 8, as well as his mother-in-law Shoshan Haran, his wife’s aunt Sharon Avigdori and her daughter Noam, 12.

Aside from Shoham, his six extended family members were released on November 25 as part of a temporary ceasefire deal brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the United States between Hamas and Israel.

The Shoham family had traveled from their home in the north to visit Adi’s family for the Simchat Torah holiday weekend. Adi was raised on the kibbutz where her parents Shoshan and Avshalom Haran still lived.

Avshalom’s sister, Sharon Avigdori, and her 12-year-old daughter, Noam, were also visiting that weekend.

Shoshan Haran’s sister and brother-in-law, Eviatar and Lilach Kipnis, lived next door in Be’eri.

On October 7, the extended family was hiding in the Haran safe room when Hamas gunmen attacked during the terror group’s bloody onslaught launched from the Gaza Strip.

Initially, all family members were thought missing, potentially all kidnapped.

The body of Eviatar Kipnis’s caregiver, Paul Castelvi, was found several days later in the nearby Be’eri forest. When Castelvi’s body was identified, the family feared that all 10 family members had been killed as well.

By October 17, the family learned that Eviatar Kipnis and Avshalom Haran‘s remains had been identified. On October 23, the family learned that Lilach Kipnis was also declared dead.

The family then found out that the remaining seven were hostages in Gaza.

The Hamas terrorists had burned the family home, forcing them all outside, said Gilad Korngold, Tal Shoham’s father.

Korngold eventually heard that his son (who Hebraicized his last name years ago), was seen alive and outside at some point that day.

Korngold, who, like his son, is an Austrian citizen, told Israeli TV after the return home of his daughter-in-law and grandchildren, that eight-year-old Naveh does not really discuss what he went through.

He “doesn’t ask about Dad, doesn’t ask about Grandpa,” said Korngold.

Korngold said the children were held together with their female relatives, but not with their father.