Mother of hostage Tamir Nimrodi says she hasn’t received any signs of life from her son

Herut Nimrodi, mother of hostage Tamir Nimrodi, who was taken hostage on October 7, 2023, from his base next to Gaza, hasn’t received any signs of life from her son from any of the recently released hostages.

“If he’s surviving, it’s a lot of time,” she tells The Times of Israel. “It’s hard to remain optimistic for 17 months, it’s hard to keep holding on to the hope.”

Nimrodi says it’s been impossible to stay positive since the IDF resumed its military offensive in Gaza, shattering a two-month-long ceasefire, during which 30 living hostages and the bodies of eight slain captives were released.

“It was such a good feeling to see the hostages coming back and to see them alive, and yes, some of them in bad shape but able to recover,” she says. “We hoped it would be like a snowball effect that would continue rolling, that everyone would come back, including the hostage bodies for burial.”

Tamir Nimrodi, center, taken hostage from his army base on October 7, 2023, with his two younger sisters, Mika, left and Amit (Courtesy)

Her fears have grown since the ceasefire ended and are compounded by the knowledge that the two soldiers taken hostage along with Tamir, Ron Sherman and Nik Beizer, were both killed by IDF strikes.

The bodies of Beizer and Sherman were found a month after they were killed in December 2023, along with the body of Elia Toledano, who was abducted from the Nova music festival.

“There aren’t a lot of captives kept in Jabalia,” says Nimrodi, referring to the northern Gaza neighborhood where it’s believed that Tamir is being held.

Nimrodi also rues the antagonism between the government and the hostage families.

“It’s very sad to me that we’ve become some kind of enemy to them or some kind of obstacle in their way,” she says. “I feel they’re controlling the country and giving the directions, and there’s no discussion on the hostages — there’s the argument about the Shin Bet and the attorney general, and all the protests about democracy, but very little about the hostages.”

Nimrodi says she knew that Tamir wouldn’t be on any list of hostages slated for release until the second phase of the now-broken deal and is trying to keep him in the conversation.

“I can’t get people to pay attention to this; we need more of the public out there; you have a feeling that this deal is getting farther and farther away,” says Nimrodi, who attends the hostage rallies in Hostages Square every Saturday night. Tamir’s youngest sister, 15-year-old Amit, spoke at the rally last week.

Nimrodi was in Washington, DC recently, meeting with members of the Trump administration as well as elected officials from the Democratic Party.

“We want them to unite around this issue because it’s not political, it’s humanitarian,” she says, adding that it feels like US President Donald Trump is still clear about the need to bring home the hostages.

“They seem to have a deeper understanding of what we’re going through and what has to be done with Hamas. The feeling is that they get it. Now we just have to keep the deal going.”