Mother of freed hostage Maxim Herkin: ‘He doesn’t talk about what happened in those 2 years’

The mother of released hostage Maxim Herkin says that her son is very weak and has not told her about his two years held in captivity by terrorists in Gaza.

“My life has come back to me. I slept for the first time,” Natasha tells Channel 12. “He is very weak. He has lost a lot of weight. He doesn’t talk at all about what happened in those two years.”

She says that she had been afraid to campaign for his release.

He added: “I was afraid to speak, he [had served in the IDF in the past as] an officer, I was afraid they would take revenge on him.”

Herkin, a dual Russian-Israeli citizen, who was 35 at the time of his abduction, has a three-year-old daughter, and was the primary provider for his mother and 11-year-old brother. He attended the Nova festival by chance, invited by friends at the last minute. It was the first time he had gone to a rave.

Dani, the father of freed hostage Omri Miran, tells the Kan public broadcaster about his emotional reunion with his son.

“It was the strongest hug I could ever give a human being. The first words I said to him were ‘I love you, I missed you,’ and he replied, ‘Dad, me too.'”

Omri Miran, who was taken from Kibbutz Nahal Oz on October 7, 2023, was reunited yesterday with his father, his wife Lishay Miran-Lavi, and his daughters Roni, 4, and Alma, 2.