JERUSALEM (VINnews) — On the fateful day of Simchas Torah, Ariel Zohar went for an early morning ride on his bike on the paths around his kibbutz of Nahal Oz. Ariel, just two weeks away from his Bar Mitzvah, was pedalling along when he suddenly saw unfamiliar armed men arriving at the kibbutz gates. Panicking, Ariel ran to the first house nearby, where the kibbutz’s security coordinator lived. He was quickly shooed into the safe room.
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It turned out to be a lifesaving move for Ariel, but not for the brave security coordinator, who was later gunned down during a heroic battle with the terrorists. Ariel was also fortunate not to share the fate of the rest of his family. His father, Yisrael Hayom photographer Yaniv Zohar, his wife Yasmin and their daughters Keshet and Techelet were murdered by the terrorists in their home, just a few hundred meters from where Ariel was hiding.
Ariel’s parents and siblings HYD, all murdered by Hamas terrorists
Ariel, the sole survivor of his family, asked ZAKA to retrieve the Tefillin which his father had given him. It was the Tefillin his own father had received from his father, who is a 90-year-old Holocaust survivor.
ZAKA volunteer Chaim Otmazgin said that he had been given only a few minutes to enter the still smoldering kibbutz and rescue the heirloom. The kibbutz was still under mortar fire even a week after the tragic events of Simchas Torah.
Accompanied by soldiers, Chaim, who also serves in the Home Front’s rescue unit, entered the darkened, scorched house and managed to locate the Tefillin. He travelled later to Rishon Letzion, where Ariel is sitting shiva with his grandparents. It was a very emotional, tearful meeting for the seasoned volunteer. The grandfather said that he had also seen his parents murdered in from of him nearly 80 years earlier. It was hard to accept that his grandson was now in a similarly horrific situation.
“שתדע לך שבקשה קטנה שלך יכולה לנצח מלחמה גדולה כי את הסיפור הזה אנחנו נספר לכל העולם”, אומר חיים אוטמזגין – מפקד היחידות המיוחדות בזק”א לנער שאיבד את כל משפחתו בטבח בקיבוץ נחל עוז. “שילד של אבא מבקש את מה שהביא לו סבא. זה אנחנו. זה העם שלנו.”
זהו סרטון שאתם חייבים לראות ולשתף… pic.twitter.com/fEJpNGAPey
— זק״א (@zakaHQ) October 21, 2023
Watch: Chaim Otmazgin finds Tefillin and brings them to Ariel
Yet the grandfather still had a message of hope: “I was 14 and held out until the end of the war and now I have a grandson. You suffered the loss of your parents at 12 but you will hold out and have grandchildren in the land of Israel.”