Freed hostage Liri Albag’s parents tell Netanyahu: ‘We want to see everyone home, then we’ll be fully happy’

Amy Spiro is a reporter and writer with The Times of Israel

The parents of former hostage Liri Albag talk to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shortly after her release from captivity in Gaza, January 25, 2025. (Screenshot/Prime Minister's Office)
The parents of former hostage Liri Albag talk to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shortly after her release from captivity in Gaza, January 25, 2025. (Screenshot/Prime Minister's Office)

The parents of released hostage Liri Albag tell Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that they will only be fully happy when every last captive is returned home.

“We have 90 more hostages that I’m sure you’ll do everything and are doing everything to bring them all home,” Liri’s father, Eli, tells the prime minister in a recording of the call released by the Prime Minister’s Office.

Liri’s mother, Shira, says that “everyone deserves to get what we got today, this joy. I can’t describe the joy we have in our hearts.”

Shira says that her daughter and the other three freed hostages are “strong, they’re champions, they are a source of pride for the State of Israel, after everything they went through, they’re heroes. Everyone deserves to get everyone home. We want to see everyone home, then we’ll be fully happy with all our hearts.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a statement shortly after the release of four female IDF soldiers held hostage by Hamas in Gaza for 477 days, January 25, 2025. (Screenshot/Prime Minister’s Office)

Netanyahu tells the couple that he never had “any doubt” Liri would return home.

“I told you she would come back, I promised you, I never had any doubt that we would succeed,” says Netanyahu. “It’s a great day.”

The prime minister says he and his wife Sara are “happy to see that [Liri] is strong and impressive after everything she went through… we’re working on freeing everyone else, but it’s really a very joyous moment.”

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