"My daughters were terrified and kept sobbing", Hungarian-Israeli mother says of her children taken hostage by Hamas

Hungarian-Israeli mother Majan Zin saw several videos of Hamas kidnapping her daughters from a kibbutz near the Gaza border. "I saw that my eight-year-old and 15-year-old daughters were terrified and kept sobbing," she told the Hungarian weekly, Hetek.

The Foreign Ministry confirmed on Thursday that two Hungarian citizens are also among the hostages taken by the Hamas terror organisation: eight-year-old Ella and 15-year-old Dafna were both taken to Gaza. Their mother, Hungarian-born Majan Zin, told Hetek that Dafna and Ella are ordinary Israeli girls who laugh a lot in their daily lives. The two girls were recently in Hungary with their mother, visiting their mother's grandparents who live in Budapest.

"My daughters were staying with my ex-husband at a kibbutz called Nahal Oz. That morning, when I saw that there was a red alert, I immediately texted their father to see if everything was okay," the mother said, recalling 7 October, the day of the Hamas invasion. The father texted back, saying that everything was fine, but by the afternoon his sister called to say that Majan's daughters had been kidnapped and taken to Gaza. At first she refused to believe that her daughters had been taken, but then she received a message from her sister on WhatsApp:

"I opened it, and then I saw the pictures. One of them showed Dafna sitting on a mat, and the Arabic writing on the picture said that Dafna was ready for prayers, she had been dressed in prayer clothes. Then she sent another picture and it was of Ella, whose arm was injured. She and Dafna were both sobbing in the photos.

– the mother recalled what she saw in the picture and on a video she received. A bit later, her ex-husband's older son sent her a video of her ex-husband being shot in the leg, with one of her daughters sitting next to him crying. The live footage was taken using her daughter Dafna's phone. Her ex-husband, his partner and their child tried to cooperate with the attackers, but all three were murdered.

When asked what message she would send to her daughters if she could, the mother said she would tell her daughters to stay strong, do whatever they are told, and know that she is doing everything she can to bring them home. "And to the Hamas terrorists, I would tell them to release my daughters immediately. They are just little girls, ordinary people, not soldiers or politicians," she said. "I gave birth to these girls and I want to do everything I can to bring them home".

The mother mentioned that they had not received any information about a possible hostage rescue operation and that she can only hope her daughters are still in Gaza and are still alive. "We have not received any confirmation to that effect," she said, and added: "All I ask is that no one forgets what happened and what is happening here. We are still on the front pages now, but in time it may all be forgotten."