Saving Private "Billy"

A touch (or two) of humanity last week surfaced in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza when a small kidnapped dog, “Billy,” was brought home to Kibbutz Nir-Oz after 17 months in Hamas captivity. It is unknown how the mutt survived those months.

The three-and-a-half year-old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, perhaps after hearing Hebrew, approached an IDF patrol in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, which Israeli troops partially re-occupied these past weeks after the breakdown of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire. One of the soldiers, from the IDF Golani (Infantry) Brigade, “adopted” the dog, ignoring pressure from his commanders to release him back into the devastated Palestinian neighborhoods.

A few days later, the soldier, on leave, returned to Israel and took “Billy” to a vet. The vet identified the dog’s owner through a chip, and on Wednesday the infantryman brought “Billy” home to his owner, Rachel Dancyg, the divorced wife of Alex Dancyg, who was murdered by the terrorists either on 7 October or sometime later while a hostage in Gaza. Rachel’s brother, Itzik Algert, was also murdered in the kibbutz by Hamas on October 7 or a few days after. The bodies of both were returned to Israel months later as part of the Israel-Hamas hostages-for-prisoners exchanges.

Thirty-eight of Nir-Oz’s members were murdered and 77 were taken hostage – together, one-third of the kibbutz members - to Gaza on October 7. Rachel Dancyg managed that morning to reach her home’s safe-room together with two of her grand-daughters and, for hours, to hold shut its metal-door as the terrorists tried to break in. But “Billy” vanished in the chaos and the family spent months trying to find him, unsure whether he had died, was wandering dazed somewhere in Israel, or had been taken to Gaza.

Two other dogs from Nir-Oz, Chuti and Tika, were also kidnapped on October 7 but somehow made it back to the kibbutz on their own.

During the Hamas offensive, the terrorists murdered many of the pets in Nir-Oz and the other kibbutzim they over-ran. Muslim Arabs are wary of dogs and rarely keep them as pets. Dogs are seen as “unclean.” Yet someone in Gaza took “Billy” “home” and cared for him during the long months of the war.