Ottawa·NewThe mother of Adi Vital-Kaploun, a Canadian woman with ties to Ottawa who was murdered during Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, is sharing her family’s story as an event in Ottawa seeks to raise support for her daughter’s kibbutz. Adi Vital-Kaploun was 1 of several Canadians murdered in Hamas attacksGuy Quenneville · CBC News · Posted: Oct 31, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 1 hour agoListen to this articleEstimated 4 minutesAdi Vital-Kaploun was 33 when she was murdered by Hamas militants during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. (Submitted by Jacqui Rivers Vital)Warning: This story contains distressing details.Asked to describe her daughter, Jacqui Rivers Vital remembers Adi Vital-Kaploun as a lioness who in her final moments fought “to save her cubs.”Vital-Kaploun, 33, was one of eight Canadians murdered in the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel by Hamas, which Canada has condemned as a terrorist group. According to her mother, Vital-Kaploun was sheltering in the safe room of her home on Kibbutz Holit, a communal farm in southwest Israel, when Hamas militants broke into her family’s sanctuary and attacked her. Vital-Kaploun’s two boys — one aged only six months at the time, the other three years and nine months — were huddled with her, Rivers Vital said. She was armed with an M16 rifle she had access to because her husband was part of a security squad, but she was outnumbered and didn’t have enough ammunition, Rivers Vital added. “She did everything that she could,” she told Ottawa Morning host Rebecca Zandbergen. LISTEN | Jacqui Rivers Vital’s full interview:Ottawa Morning12:20Mother of Canadian victim of October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel shares daughter’s storyOttawa’s Jacqui Rivers Vital often refers to her daughter Adi Vital-Kaploun as a lioness because of the way she protected her two young sons from Hamas militants on October 7, 2023. She sat down with Rebecca Zandbergen to share some of Adi’s story.’3 days of not knowing’The Jewish Federation of Ottawa, speaking on behalf of Vital-Kaploun’s family, confirmed her death one week after the Oct. 7 attacks. Rivers Vital, who lives in Israel but was in Ottawa at the time of the attacks, spoke to CBC earlier this week. She was back in Canada to attend an event raising money for the kibbutz and said she doesn’t want her daughter to be remembered as a statistic. “She [was a] person. And she had [a lot] to live for,” she said. Vital-Kaploun is pictured here with her boys Eshel, left, and Negev, right. (Submitted by Jacqui Rivers Vital)During the attacks, Rivers Vital got a “red alert” on an Israeli app. That prompted her to call her husband, who was in Israel hiding in Vital-Kaploun’s guesthouse, she said. “We only had two voice messages after that. I really didn’t know anything,” she said of what happened to Vital-Kaploun.Images on TV showed militants in an area Rivers Vital recognized as Vital-Kaploun’s kibbutz. But she didn’t find out her daughter was dead until three days later.”Three days of not knowing,” she said. “All I could think about was, she had been in the Israeli intelligence unit and what would they do to her, if they knew that?”The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) entered Vital-Kaploun’s home after the attack, but her body wasn’t found in the safe room until the IDF returned three days later, Rivers Vital said. “She was just buried under all of the chaos [Hamas] made.”The Jewish ritual of shiva involves a seven-day period of mourning for the death of a family member. In the three days leading to the discovery of Vital-Kaploun’s body, “it was like a shiva house, without the shiva,” Rivers Vital said.Vital-Kaploun’s mother says she waited to learn about her daughter’s fate for three days after the attacks. (Submitted by Jacqui Rivers Vital)Oldest child ‘remembers things’ Vital-Kaploun’s two boys were kidnapped by Hamas before ultimately being released, her eldest child having been shot in the foot, Rivers Vital said. He will turn six in January and is athletic like his mom, according to his grandmother.”He remembers things. He doesn’t talk with us about it a lot. But he has pictures of Adi in his room.”The youngest child doesn’t know anything, she said. “He’s just a happy two-and-a-half year old.”They’re the reason, too, that Rivers Vital continues to share her daughter’s story. “They should know who their mother was, how important she was to the world.” With files from Ottawa Morning
Mother of Canadian victim in Oct. 7 attacks recalls ‘lioness’ who died protecting her ‘cubs’
