Taken captive: Omri Miran, driven in his own car to Gaza

Omri Miran, 46, was taken captive on October 7 by Hamas terrorists from Kibbutz Nahal Oz, leaving his wife, Lishay Miran, 38, and their two small daughters.

Roni, 2, and Alma, 6 months old, were both still sleeping when the sirens began sounding in Nahal Oz, waking their parents who put the girls into the safe room. As the morning progressed, Omri and Lishay began realizing that a more significant attack was taking place.

At 10:30 a.m., the window in their bathroom was kicked in and terrorists entered their house. Omri and Lishay tried to keep their daughters quiet in the safe room, and had two knives with them to try and protect themselves.

The terrorists began yelling outside the safe room door, and brought a 16-year-old neighbor, Tomer Arbe-Eliaz, who asked them to open the door, otherwise the terrorists would hurt him.

“We opened the door,” Lishay later told Ynet.

They were all seated in the living room, with Roni, the two-year-old, still sleeping in the safe room. Lishay begged the terrorists to let her get Roni, and they allowed Tomer to get her.

At one point, the terrorists appeared to be ready to kill them, and then decided to take the entire family to the neighbor’s house, another family living across the way.

Both families were seated on the floor, while the 18-year-old daughter of the neighboring family had been killed by the terrorists in their safe room.

At around 1 p.m., two more women were brought to the house, one of whom was American and spoke English. Thirty minutes later, the terrorists told Omri and the father of the other family to stand, and they took them, with their car keys to their cars. Minutes later, said Lishay, she saw them driving away.

“I had told Omri minutes before, “I love you, I’ll protect our girls, we’re waiting for you, and don’t be a hero,” she told Ynet.

Lishay and her girls, along with her neighbors, sat for another four hours until IDF soldiers found then at 5:30 p.m.