Rescued hostage: Freeing captives should be main war goal; protests gave us strength

Almog Meir Jan, who was rescued from Hamas captivity in Gaza by Israeli forces last year, said in an interview aired Saturday that the return of hostages has to be the main goal in the ongoing war and that his life cannot return to normal until all of them are back home.

Speaking to Channel 12’s “Meet the Press,” Meir Jan was asked whether he understood he was being rescued last June when he began hearing gunfire around him.

“No,” he said. “Because you know, in Gaza there are a lot of gunshots, a lot of fighting, a lot even right under your nose. But during the breaches, like in the first seconds of the breach, you already understand, yes. It was insane, but it was something unusual. And the gunfire… later it becomes like a scene [from a Hollywood movie].”

In those moments, he said, he was just focused on following instructions. “For us, it was very, very clear that we were going to make it out alive.”

During the rescue mission, one of the members of the Israeli force, Yamam officer Chief Inspector Arnon Zmora, was critically injured and later succumbed to his wounds. The mission was later named “Operation Arnon” in his memory.

“I saw him after he was already hit,” Meir Jan recalled. “He was really part of the first force in, so he got injured relatively early.”

Asked about his relationship with Zmora’s family, Meir Jan said, “When they see me, I can say I see that their hearts also fill up because they see I’m coming back to life, and it wasn’t for nothing. What happened had a real, living, breathing purpose right in front of them. One for which Arnon gave his life. We have this bond that’s hard to explain. There’s a lot of love, even though we don’t really know each other. We have this mutual empathy. His family is truly amazing.”

Meir Jan said he is still traumatized by his time in captivity. “The trauma comes more from day-to-day triggers. Like suddenly seeing a sign with [hostages Guy Gilboa-Dalal and Evyatar David], it throws me back, brings me back to times, to days when I saw them in captivity. And it’s hard for me to think that if not for the rescue, I’d still be there, and they’d still be there, and their conditions might be worse because of my rescue. I think about this a lot, and it triggers a lot.”

“So until everyone comes back, you don’t feel you can close the circle with yourself?” journalist Ben Caspit asked Meir Jan. “Of course not,” he responded.

Describing what life was like in Hamas captivity, Meir Jan said, “It really depends on the period, and it really depends on the day. There were days of 24/7 explosions. You could literally count down—3, 2, 1, boom. 3, 2, 1, boom. Very close, and some not. It varied. It also really depended on how the captors were that day, how they woke up. If one of them had a nightmare or got bad news, like someone in his family was killed.”

Meir Jan also recalled hearing about demonstrations for the release of hostages while in captivity.

“That gave us a lot of strength. It gave us a lot of strength to see the people, because they hadn’t forgotten, and because you see unity. In captivity, you’re very alone, very isolated. You just think: if only everyone could be together, if only they could be strong. If you support the hostage families, if you support the struggle to bring the hostages home, and you have a very clear goal — you want the hostages back home.”

When asked, Meir Jan took a firm stance, saying that the return of hostages should precede the toppling of Hamas as the war’s main goal.

“I think that’s something that represents us as a people. That ‘being there for one another,’ that ‘every soul is sacred,’ ‘each person is an entire world.’ I’d say the same about the soldiers,” he said. “It’s hard for me to wake up in the morning and see another soldier killed. Another name has been released for publication. We’re talking about 28, 29 soldiers just this past month. That’s a lot. And I don’t really see progress in the fighting in Gaza.”

Besides Meir Jan, Operation Arnon also saw the rescue of hostages Noa Argamani, Shlomi Ziv and Andrey Kozlov. The latter two spent were held in captivity with Meir Jan.

“I think they know me better than many people in my life. And yes, our friendship continues. We really understand each other,” he said. “Andrey is in the US a lot, but yes—we meet up there too. I’m also in touch with Noa. I really try to stay connected and be a partner in that.”

Despite the trauma, Meir Jan said his experience in captivity “upgraded” him as a person. “I took that time as a period where I learned a lot about myself. I can tell you I learned a lot about myself. I learned what resilience means, and I learned how to take care of myself — how not to rely on anyone else. How to stay me, to stay calm, to stay patient. So yes, these are things that stay with me today, and they help me in life, with life’s proportions.”

Meir Jan ended the interview with a message to viewers appealing for unity.

“I think our victory as a country depends on unity. Because in the end, there are decisions, and decisions need to be made. There will always be people who don’t agree with the decision. There will always be people who do. But as a decision, as a choice, to decide to be a united people, I think that’s where victory begins. I think that’s where a certain value of victory begins, of togetherness. Let’s start being together,” he said.

Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 50 hostages, including 49 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023. They include the bodies of at least 28 confirmed dead by the IDF. Twenty are believed to be alive, and there are grave concerns for the well-being of two others, Israeli officials have said. Hamas is also holding the body of an IDF soldier killed in Gaza in 2014.

Hamas released 30 hostages — 20 Israeli civilians, five soldiers, and five Thai nationals — and the bodies of eight slain Israeli captives during a ceasefire between January and March, and one additional hostage, a dual American-Israeli citizen, in May as a “gesture” to the United States. The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that in the early weeks of the war. In exchange, Israel has freed some 2,000 jailed Palestinian terrorists, security prisoners, and Gazan terror suspects detained during the war.

Eight hostages have been rescued from captivity by troops alive, and the bodies of 49 have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors, and the body of a soldier who was killed in 2014.