Freed hostage says he saw Avinatan Or alive in captivity, marking first sign of life
Hostage families petition High Court over Gaza electricity cut, saying it endangers loved ones’ lives; Trump backtracks from plan to expel Palestinians from Gaza
One of the recently released hostages told Israeli authorities that he saw fellow hostage Avinatan Or alive while they were in captivity, Israel’s Channel 12 reported Wednesday, marking the first public sign of life since he was taken into captivity.
The 32-year-old is one of the 24 hostages whom Israel believes remain alive in the Strip, including 22 Israelis, one Thai and one Nepali. The network did not specify when the freed hostage came into contact with him.
All are young men who would go free in the current hostage-ceasefire agreement’s second phase, however, discussions for the next phase fell flat, leaving the truce between Israel and Hamas in a fragile state.
Or, 32, was abducted from the Nova festival and separated from his girlfriend, Noa Argamani, who was rescued by Israeli soldiers in June 2024.
Later that day, a Hamas video of Or and Argamani was posted on Telegram, showing Argamani on an all-terrain vehicle, as she called in fear, crying, “Don’t kill me!” reaching out her arms to Or, who was being marched away from her, surrounded by at least three terrorists.
After the report was published, Argamani, who has campaigned relentlessly around the world for the hostages, posted on Instagram, that “until Avinatan comes back, my heart is in captivity.”
Or, who grew up in the West Bank settlement of Shilo, is an electrical engineer and works for Nvidia. Before his abduction, he lived in Tel Aviv, where he and Argamani were planning to move in together.
The revelation came as an Israeli delegation was meeting mediators in Doha to discuss the so-called “Witkoff proposal” according to an Israeli official speaking to The Times of Israel.
The Israeli negotiating team was scheduled to return home Wednesday night, said the official, but could remain in Doha on the chance of a breakthrough.
The Witkoff outline envisions a roughly two-month extension of the ceasefire, during which Hamas would release about half of the living hostages up front, and the rest at the end along with an end to the war.
However, Hamas has been adamant on extending the deal in its current form and moving to its second phase, which requires Israel to pull out from the Philadelphi Corridor, a buffer zone along Gaza’s border with Egypt.
Hamas has accused Israel of reneging on the ceasefire deal, stating in a statement on Monday that Israel “refuses to commence the second phase, exposing its intentions of evasion and stalling.” Israel has already stopped aid deliveries to Gaza amid the deadlock over the ceasefire.
Also Wednesday, some 50 relatives of hostages being held in Gaza filed a petition to the High Court of Justice demanding the reversal of Israel’s decision to cut the electricity supply to Gaza as a means to pressure Hamas, on the grounds that it endangers their loved ones.
“This is a decision that directly and immediately endangers the lives of the hostages, Israeli citizens, who cannot protect themselves,” the families said in a statement announcing the petition.
The petitioners contended that Energy Minister Eli Cohen’s decision to cut electricity to Gaza was made without the necessary authority. They argued that immediate action needs to be taken by the court to oblige the government to reverse the decision through an interim order.
Families have repeatedly argued that military pressure or punitive actions against Hamas do not work and the best way to ensure their release is through a deal.
Highlighting this, the mother of freed Israeli hostage Omer Shem-Tov revealed on Wednesday that Hamas terrorists threatened to kill her son when they heard IDF soldiers above the ground while holding him in a tunnel.
Shem-Tov was included in the final group of captives released in the first stage of the hostage-ceasefire deal.
Omer “heard the tanks above and the voices of the soldiers. The captors had their weapons drawn on him and told him, ‘If the IDF arrives, we’ll shoot you in the head,’” Omer’s mother, Shelly Shem-Tov, told the Kan public broadcaster.
Shelly described the daily conditions Omer faced — he was kept in “a confined space with four guards. It was even harder when the army was in the area, everything was tense.”
Shelly also commented on Omer’s recent meeting with US President Donald Trump in Washington.
“Omer got the impression that the president was genuinely committed… and intended to bring everyone back. That was meaningful for him. He was disappointed that it took so long to bring him home,” she said.
Amid continued frustration by the families, a Channel 13 news poll revealed Wednesday that half of Israelis believe US President Donald Trump is more concerned about the fate of the hostages than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Asked which of the two they believe is more concerned, 50 percent of respondents say Trump, 29 percent responded Netanyahu, while the rest were unsure.
The Trump administration had been conducting its own negotiations with Hamas focused on the American hostages, in parallel to indirect talks mediated by Qatar and Egypt.
The direct negotiations bore no fruit, according to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Also Wednesday, Trump appeared to back down from his proposal to relocate Gazans during reconstruction of the Strip.
During an Oval Office spray with Ireland’s Prime Minister Michael Martin, a reporter asked the Irish leader about Trump’s plan to “expel Palestinians out of Gaza,” to which the president piped in: “Nobody’s expelling any Palestinians.”
The comment appeared to amount to an about-face for Trump, who, when introducing his proposal to take over Gaza last month, said that all of the Strip’s population of roughly 2 million people would be permanently relocated.
Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem welcomed what he viewed as a retreat by Trump from his stance, urging him to refrain from aligning with the vision of the “extreme Zionist right.”
When pressed last month as to whether he would relocate Palestinians by force, Trump insisted that no people in Gaza actually want to remain there.
Earlier in the meeting, Trump lamented that people are forgetting what Hamas did on October 7, reiterating the brutal treatment of the hostages by the terror group.
“We’re working hard with Israel… to see [how] we can solve the problem,” Trump said.
