Adam Korbin, regional president, Metro Vancouver, for BGU Canada, left, with Jacqui and Yaron Vital, who visited Vancouver last month. On July 21, they shared the story of the murder of their daughter, Adi Vital-Kaploun, by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023. (photo from BGU BC & Alberta)<\/i><\/p>\n
<\/i>One family\u2019s tragic experiences during the Oct. 7 terror attacks were shared in an intimate, emotional gathering in a private Vancouver home recently.<\/p>\n
Yaron and Jacqui Vital shared the story of the murder of their daughter Adi Vital-Kaploun. Jacqui, an Ottawa native who has lived in Israel for 50 years, and her husband, Yaron, who survived the invasion of Kibbutz Holit, told their stories July 21.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The evening was convened by Ben-Gurion University Canada. Adi studied at the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research at BGU\u2019s Sde Boker campus and the university has set up a special scholarship fund in her memory.<\/p>\n For the Simchat Torah holiday in 2023, Yaron Vital joined daughter Adi and her partner, Adani, and their two kids, 4-year-old Negev and 4-month-old Eshel, at their home on Kibbutz Holit. They were joined by another daughter, Ayala, and her family, who live in another kibbutz in the Gaza Envelope area. For the first time since the COVID pandemic, Jacqui was visiting family in Ottawa and watched the confusing news from afar, with mounting alarm.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe had a nice day on Friday,\u201d Yaron recalled. \u201cAdani and Adi made a nice supper, we played with the kids a little bit and then Ayala left and went back to the kibbutz.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Because Adi was nursing the baby and would be up in the night, she suggested her father sleep in the nearby guest house.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an apartment that nobody uses most of the year and it doesn\u2019t seem in such good shape, but it\u2019s a place to sleep,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the end, this apartment saved my life.\u201d<\/p>\n At 6:29 a.m., he woke up to \u201ca noise like thunder\u201d and a changed world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The sky was so bright from rockets that his eyes were seared and he could see the lights for days when he shut his eyes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Yaron returned to the safe room in the guest house and called Adi, who told him to stay where he was. Adani had left the kibbutz earlier and, when the attacks began, Adi texted him not to return.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Yaron was in the army for 24 years, and served in a special unit in charge of the security along that very border. While the density of rockets overhead was unprecedented, he soon realized how different the scenario was from anything he, or the country, had seen before. Looking out a window, he saw terrorists running throughout the kibbutz. He heard screaming and shooting. From experience, he expected the military to\u00a0<\/span>respond almost instantaneously. He had no idea that there were more than 3,000 terrorists already in the country and that Holit was far from the only kibbutz under attack.<\/p>\n The safe room door in the guest house did not have a lock \u2013 they are created to protect from rockets and missiles, not from on-the-ground terrorist invasions \u2013 and so Yaron rigged up a rope to create a makeshift lock.<\/p>\n The rampaging terrorists skipped the guest house and Yaron had no idea why. Later, in piecing together some of the disparate threads from the day, it emerged that the invaders had detailed maps of the various kibbutzim, clearly based on intelligence from Gazans who had worked at or visited the border-adjacent communities \u2013 the maps indicated who lived where, which homes had dogs, where jewelry was kept. Presumably, the terrorists knew the guest house was usually vacant and so didn\u2019t waste their time kicking in the door.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n At 12:30 p.m. \u2013 six hours after the horrors began \u2013 Yaron received a text message from Adi.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re breaking into my house,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was the last time she sent me a message,\u201d Yaron said. \u201cI tried to call her back after 10 minutes. She didn\u2019t answer. I heard some shooting from her direction.\u201d<\/p>\n He waited in silence all afternoon. After 11 hours, Yaron heard people in the house. He wouldn\u2019t open the door, knowing it could be a trap. They hollered to see if anyone was in the building.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t answer until they came close to the door of the safe room,\u201d he recalled. \u201cThey said, \u2018Is somebody inside? Is somebody here?\u2019 It seemed like a Hebrew accent. I decided I couldn\u2019t take it anymore, to tell you the truth, so I decided I\u2019m going to answer them.\u201d<\/p>\n Once he was freed, he went with the soldiers to Adi\u2019s house across the street.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThey tried to open the door and it was locked, so I had a feeling maybe there was a chance,\u201d he said. \u201cThe commander kicked the door, they jumped inside, disappeared for a few seconds and then they came to me and said, \u2018Listen, we saw a dead body in the kitchen.\u2019 When they said that, I lost my \u2026 I almost fell down. But, they said right away, \u2018Don\u2019t worry, it\u2019s a man.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n It was evident almost immediately that the body was that of a terrorist. There was no sign of the kids and, while the safe room was a shamble, there was no sign of Adi either. There were hundreds of bullet casings on the floor of the living room.<\/p>\n \u201cI called Adani and I told him that there is nobody in the house. Don\u2019t worry, she\u2019s hiding someplace,\u201d he recalled Adani telling him.<\/p>\n Dead dogs were scattered throughout the kibbutz. Doors to most of the houses were open and Yaron could see bodies inside. Late in the day, he got in his severely damaged car and began to drive home to Jerusalem. On the way, he received news that his grandchildren were safe and comparatively healthy.<\/p>\n Al Jazeera was on site with the terrorists and had footage of the two boys being abducted. Negev had been shot in the foot and a terrorist was bandaging his wound while another terrorist had Eshel on his shoulders and rocked him in a carriage.<\/p>\n In a scene broadcast on Anderson Cooper\u2019s CNN program on Monday, Oct. 9, the terrorists set the boys free right around the Gaza border. The footage showed Negev and Eshel returning with a woman toward the kibbutz. The Vitals believe this was a propaganda move to show the humanity of the terrorists, who were depicted as kindly releasing a mother and her (presumed) children. Around midnight, Adani was reunited with his sons.<\/p>\n After four days battling the terrorists, Holit was finally secured and a special unit came to the kibbutz and started to clear the bodies.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the soldiers bent down and suddenly saw a hand sticking out from under the sofa,\u201d Yaron said. They took a picture of the hand with a wedding ring and that is how the family learned that Adi had not been kidnapped but killed.<\/p>\n It would turn out that she had courageously fended off the terrorists for some time with the gun Adani had in the house \u2013 killing one of the terrorists, the body the soldiers discovered in the home. Eventually, though, she was murdered in front of her children. The kids were taken by the terrorists and handed over to a neighbour, who was the woman pictured on CNN.<\/p>\n Jacqui spoke of the unbearable anxiety of not knowing the fate of her daughter.<\/p>\n \u201cI only had three days of not knowing where she was and I couldn\u2019t touch my neck because I was so tense just thinking about what they might be doing to her,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd there are still 50 families that can\u2019t touch their neck.\u201d<\/p>\n Of their late daughter, Jacqui said: \u201cWe know where she is, she\u2019s in a safe place.\u201d<\/p>\n This sentiment has caused some controversy in Israel. On the 10th day after Oct. 7, Adani was on TV saying he was relieved that Adi had been murdered and not kidnapped because, he assumed, death was the preferable alternative. At the time, probably no one imagined that dozens of hostages would still be in captivity in Gaza almost 700 days later.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n According to David Berson, executive director of Ben-Gurion University Canada, British Columbia and Alberta, 118 people from the Ben-Gurion University community have been killed on or since Oct. 7, most of them during the 10\/7 terror attacks and others in the ensuing war. These include faculty, students and staff.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Adam Korbin, regional president, Metro Vancouver, for BGU Canada, left, with Jacqui and Yaron Vital, who visited Vancouver last month. On July 21, they shared the story of the murder of their daughter, Adi Vital-Kaploun, by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023. (photo from BGU BC & Alberta) One family\u2019s tragic experiences during the Oct. 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