Family’s sole survivor of Hamas massacre recovers beloved gift

Ariel Zohar will turn 13 in two weeks, traditionally a time of great celebration when boys celebrate their bar mitzvah, a Jewish coming-of-age ritual. He still plans to read from the Torah to mark the occasion, but the event has been overshadowed by profound grief after his parents and two sisters were brutally murdered in the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack.

His father, Yaniv Zohar, worked for Israel Hayom videographer and had spent decades covering the Gaza Strip.

Ariel survived the bloodbath because just before the terrorists breached the Israeli border, he had left the house at Nahal Oz for a job. As Hamas terrorists invaded the kibbutz, he raced, frightened, to the first house in the commune. It was the home of the head of the local security team, who rushed Ariel to the safe room of the house before heading out to defend the kibbutz. The homeowner did not survive.

Ariel, still in the safe room, spent hours hiding in terror as the bloody battle raged throughout the kibbutz. When he finally stepped out of the room, the shattering reality came into view: He was the only member of his family to have survived; more than 100 others had been viciously murdered.

When a team arrived from ZAKA, the Israeli casualties rescue identification organization, Ariel had one impassioned request: “Help me save the tefillin that my family went to the trouble of getting me before they go up in flames or get desecrated by the murderers.”

Tefillin are phylacteries, small leather boxes containing Hebrew verses, and are used for Jewish rituals. His grandfather, who had survived the Holocaust, had given it to him, he explained.

“We went into Nahal Oz escorted by special forces and under heavy fire. As we moved toward the house, an antitank missile was fired at us,” ZAKA spokesman Motti Buktzin told Israel Hayom. “The army returned fire to the source, but ultimately the unbelievable happened – we managed to extricate the tefillin intact, under fire.

“That evening, we drove to Rishon Lezion, where Ariel was staying with his grandparents. The recovery of his tefillin was greeted with tears and weeping. Ariel’s grandfather told us that he had survived the Holocaust and that his parents, too, had been murdered before his eyes. He couldn’t believe that more than 70 years later, his grandson would experience a similar atrocity.”

Haim Outmezgine, commander of the special ZAKA unit, added: “When this bar mitzvah boy, the only survivor of the brutal slaughter of his entire family, asked me to save the tefillin it gave me a little hope that our people will continue to carry on. When I met with Ariel, I was gripped with emotion and couldn’t stop crying.”

Israel Hayom is owned by the Adelson family, including Dr. Miriam Adelson, which also owns the Review-Journal.