Rescued hostage Noa Argamani: Main concern in Hamas captivity was for my parents

Cnaan Lidor is The Times of Israel's Jewish World reporter

A screenshot of video released by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum on June 29, 2024, shows rescued hostage Noa Argamani speaking. (Screen capture)
A screenshot of video released by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum on June 29, 2024, shows rescued hostage Noa Argamani speaking. (Screen capture)

During her eight months in captivity in Gaza, Noa Argamani thought mostly about her parents, she says in a video message broadcast at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv.

Argamani is one of four hostages rescued by Israeli special forces in Gaza on June 8. She is an only child and her mother has terminal brain cancer, as she notes in the video, her first public remarks since being rescued. She calls on those watching to remember the remaining captives held in Gaza, including her partner Avinatan Or.

“We can’t forget about those 120 hostages in Gaza, who are waiting for a happy ending,” she says.

In the video statement,  Argamani stops short of calling for the government to make a deal with Hamas for the hostages’ release. Avinatan Or’s family belongs to the Tikvah Forum, a group of hostage families who have not joined calls for a ceasefire deal as advocated by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which organizes the weekly rally in Tel Aviv.

Images from the kidnapping of Argamani, who terrorists took to Gaza on a motorcycle, and Or are among the most well-known images from Hamas’s October 7 onslaught.

She expresses her condolences to the family of Arnon Zmora, a police counter-terror officer killed during the rescue mission. Being with her mother “after eight months of uncertainty is a great privilege, as is seeing my parents surrounded by so many good people.”

” Although I’m home now, we can’t forget about the hostages who are still in Hamas captivity, and we must do everything possible to bring them back home,” Argamani adds.

She ends her address with the words: “May we know how to love and not to hate.”

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