Freed hostage Or Levy’s mother-in-law, who helped raise his son: ‘Today I’m going back to being a grandma’

The mother-in-law of freed hostage Or Levy, who has helped to raise his son for the past 16 months, says she is now going back to being a grandmother.

Levy’s wife Eynav, the daughter of Pnina Elkayem, was killed on October 7, while he was kidnapped to the Gaza Strip.

The couple left their then-2-year-old Almog with Elkayem when they went to the Nova festival near the Gaza border.

Since that day, Elkayem and Levy’s family have raised the boy.

“Today I’m going back to being a grandmother,” Elkayem tells the Kan public broadcaster.

“It was a difficult time, but now we see the light at the end of the tunnel. A different life lies ahead of us,” she says.

Or and Eynav arrived at the festival just before the deadly Hamas onslaught began. They headed for their car when the rockets started, then sought refuge in a roadside bomb shelter.

Several days later, the IDF informed the family that Eynav had been killed and her body had been found in the shelter, and that Or had been taken captive.

Since then, Almog had been told that people were searching for his father.

During a video call yesterday, Almog then told his father, “Dad, it took you a long time to come back.” Hours later, the two were reunited.