When the nausea and sensitivity to smells and tastes started, Doron Katz-Asher knew she had to buy a home pregnancy test to confirm the feeling. It was just before the eve of the holiday of Shavuot. "I went to the self-pay counters," she says. "I didn't want to stand in line and have people see that I bought the test. I did the test at home, on the morning of the holiday. When I saw two lines, I told Yoni the news. It was an exciting moment of happiness. I did feel it, but until you see a positive result, you don't know."
The fact you got pregnant after being held captive in harsh conditions is a bit of a miracle. Isn't it?
"Yes. I wanted another child even before the war. It didn't happen because we weren't mature. Yoni didn't want to and that's fine, I respected his wishes. It's not easy to be with two little girls and decide to have another child. I understood why he didn't want to, and I also understood why I did."
And after the captivity?
"When I returned from there, I doubted whether I wanted another child. Do I want to bring a child into a world like this or into a family with post-traumatic stress? After all, we've all been through an unimaginable experience here. Am I even capable of it? Is it good for the family? My desire reared its head again a few months after I returned from captivity. I didn't expect it to come so relatively quickly. This is the pregnancy that came after a period of poor nutrition in captivity, drastic weight loss, stress and grief. I'll be honest and say that I didn't even get my period for months. Everything together wasn't in my favor. I was surprised, and it only made me feel like it was the right thing that had to happen. The pregnancy is one of the miracles that happened to me in the last year, alongside the difficult things."
Did you feel you could?
"Yes. I think I'm strong. If I do something, it's a sign that I can do it. For my daughters, Raz (6) and Aviv (4), it will bring a lot of good. They are crazy excited about the birth, which is expected in February, and they are looking forward to it. There is no joy in me with all the complexity of the matter. It will do good for the girls and the whole family."
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Doron and her daughters are reunited with Yoni after their release from Gaza
(Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)
Katz was released from captivity with her daughters on November 24, 2023, in the first phase of the hostage deal, after 49 days in Gaza. During the kidnapping to Gaza, her mother, the late Efrat Katz, was killed by fire from an Air Force helicopter. Her brother, the late Ravid Katz, a member of Kibbutz Nir Oz's standby security squad, fought to defend the community and was murdered at the age of 51. His body was kidnapped to Gaza and rescued in July.
She is already in her eighth month, and has not yet made any special preparations for the birth. She has not bought any clothes or equipment, nor has she asked to know the sex of the fetus.
"Right now, leaving a little mystery is good for me," she says. "If I had gotten pregnant before October 7, I would have obviously known the sex of the fetus and I would already have all the baby equipment. In the past, I had to have the clothes folded in drawers, and have lists of all the equipment and what was needed in an Excel file. That doesn't exist now. Something has been released. The need for order and organization no longer drives me. I haven't been to a single baby store yet. I'm also not thinking about names yet.
"This pregnancy is different from previous ones. The body and mind are busy with the hostages. I pray every evening that my late mother's husband, Gadi Mozes, who spent his 80th birthday in captivity, will be able to be in Israel on the day of the birth. In December 2023, Islamic Jihad released a video of Gadi, a sign of life. Since then, we have known nothing."
Didn't choose to be famous
A month and a half ago, Yoni Asher, Doron's estranged husband, published a personal and open post on his Facebook account, announcing that he and his wife were separating. My first meeting with Doron, which took place in their beautiful home on a moshav in Sharon, took place just before the announcement of the separation. In our second meeting, Doron pats her stomach, is silent for a moment, and matter-of-factly confirms things.
"It's true," she admits, "Yoni and I decided to break up. It's not easy for me, but I will be okay and the family will be okay. The girls remain in first place for us. However, I choose to keep the circumstances of our separation within the four walls of our home. I am a private person, I did not choose to become a well-known woman in the public eye, it happened out of necessity. At least I still want to keep my personal life to myself and remain as clean as possible in the process. It's not easy for all of us. Life is complex and full of surprises, good and bad, and we have to do our best."
What can you say?
"A breakup is an emotional roller coaster and it's not a pretty thing, but for me, no matter what happened and what happens between us, we are a family, and soon we will become five. That won't change. For the sake of the children, we will always remain a family, with kindness and a smile. Even though it's difficult now, I hope we're headed for a better future."
In her life before October 7, Doron Katz-Asher, 35, was an accountant who worked for the real estate company Api Properties. If all goes well, she is expected to return to her office after maternity leave. Her managers are waiting for her and supporting her throughout this difficult year.
"I tried to go back to work a little bit recently," she says, "it was kind of a kick-starting attempt. I came to the office once a week. Can I tell you it was successful? Unfortunately not. I can't concentrate. Returning to a routine of home-work-children when Gadi is in the tunnels is very difficult for me. I try to come once a week. It's meaningful for me to get dressed and leave the house. I hope that after maternity leave things will look different."
Tell me about your feelings during the kidnapping.
"I was in some kind of emotional disconnect. You just want to stay alive, protect your daughters, and you don't understand that this is the situation you're in. When we got to Gaza, we entered the Hamas headquarters, which had hundreds of people inside. I was wounded and asked for a doctor because I wouldn't stop bleeding, and I lost consciousness twice. Then I saw that Aviv was wounded in the leg. She didn't speak from the shock.
"A car with a man and a woman in it was waiting for us outside, and after a few minutes we arrived at their house. My body was exhausted. I could barely climb the stairs. They brought in their son, who apparently worked as a paramedic, to check on me. He asked to stitch up my wounds, without anesthesia, of course. I didn't know how I would react to the pain, and I asked my daughters to move to the far end of the room, but they were so scared they wouldn't leave me. It made me feel restrained when they stitched up my wounds, despite the excruciating pain."
After 16 days, they were transferred to another place. "We were woken up in the middle of the night and told to leave quickly because the IDF announced that it was bombing the house. We went out into the street. It was one of the scariest moments. I was afraid that the girls would speak Hebrew, that they would cry, that something would go wrong, and that we would be lynched in the middle of the street.
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"They took us to the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. There we met other hostages, most of whom have already been released today, except for David Cunio. We were there for 33 days in terrible hygienic conditions and extreme hunger. My daughters defecated in the room's wastebasket, because the toilet was locked, we had to knock on the door and girls that age can't help themselves. There was a terrible smell in the room and they were sick several times. Sometimes they brought me something to bring down the fever and sometimes they simply told me to put them under a stream of cold water. They gave us half a pita a day each. I was hungry and the girls cried because they were hungry. I tried to move their sleep until the later hours, because we knew that in the morning there would be no food, so I wanted them to get up in the middle of the day and not feel hungry for many hours."
How did you communicate to your daughters what was happening?
"I told them that we are now with good people who will take care of us, and as soon as we can we will return home. To this day they ask me why Gadi isn't coming home and if all the bad guys are already in prison."
How are they today?
"Aviv and Raz are in a full and good routine of kindergarten, friends, enrichment classes, and birthday parties. Everything a normal child does. Acclimating at home took time. It's not that there aren't any difficulties, they talk about the captivity as if it were yesterday. It's present in the house and we don't hide it and sweep it under the rug. They have great mental resilience. Although Aviv was very small, she remembers what wounded her and where she was and the names of the terrorists who guarded us in the hospital. They say, 'My dear, shwaye shwaye (slowly, slowly in Arabic),' and they also write in Arabic sometimes. It doesn't scare me. Today they already speak in the lexicon of 'we were kidnapped,' 'Grandpa Gadi is in Gaza,' 'The bad guys killed Grandma and Uncle Ravid.'"
We are just before a new year. What do you wish for yourself?
"I can't wish myself anything good right now. I hope the new year begins with the 100 hostages at home with us, some for rehabilitation and some for burial. Until that happens, we're stuck on October 7. This won't be a new year for me, and it won't be possible to talk about a resurrection."