Tearful Noa Argamani tells Netanyahu his vow of long war broke her in captivity
Separately, brother of US-Israeli hostage says PM skirted questions from families about specifics of deal, and the urgency of captives’ plight ‘didn’t seem to resonate with him’
Rescued hostage Noa Argamani tearfully told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting Monday that her most difficult experience during her eight months of captivity was hearing the premier declare that the war was going to be long.
“The hardest moment I had in captivity was when I listened to the radio and heard you say the war will be long. I thought, ‘I won’t get out of here.’ It was a breaking point for me,” Argamani told Netanyahu, according to two participants in the meeting who confirmed the account first reported in Hebrew media.
She then broke down in tears and embraced another hostage relative who was at the meeting in Washington, DC, as Netanyahu’s face remained impassive, the participants said.
Argamani, who was rescued last month from captivity in Gaza along with three other hostages seized by terrorists during the Hamas-led October 7 massacre, is accompanying Netanyahu on his trip to the United States alongside her father Yaakov and other relatives of captives. The meeting was held at Netanyahu’s hotel after their flight from Israel landed.
In the meeting, Argamani said the remaining 120 hostages in Gaza “must be brought home as quickly as possible, before it is too late,” the participants said.
“I saw death with my eyes,” she recounted, saying that fellow hostages Yossi Sharabi and Itay Svirsky were killed while next to her.
The meeting was also attended by relatives of hostages who traveled separately to Washington to demonstrate against the premier and urge him to immediately sign a deal with Hamas to free the hostages. Netanyahu told the meeting the conditions for a deal for their loved ones’ release were “ripening, without a doubt.”
Argamani’s comments came as she and her father faced virulent criticism for agreeing to accompany Netanyahu on his visit to the US, leading to condemnations of the criticism by both coalition and opposition lawmakers.
Family members of other hostages held by Hamas had urged the Argamanis not to go, claiming this would bolster Netanyahu, whom many blame for failing to secure a deal to free the remaining 120 hostages after more than nine months of war.
Many relatives of hostages have been waging a months-long protest campaign against the Netanyahu government’s failure to strike a deal with Hamas, while a minority of families have been calling on him to escalate military pressure as a means of coercing Hamas into softening its negotiation stance.
Argamani is set to join Netanyahu with her father and other hostage family members for the prime minister’s address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday.
In a post on Facebook Monday, left-wing Haaretz pundit Uri Misgav — a vehement critic of Netanyahu — said that Argamani and her father “should be ashamed of agreeing to serve as window dressing” for Netanyahu on the same day that the IDF announced the deaths in Hamas captivity of hostages Alex Dancyg and Yagev Buchshtav.
Retired journalist Dan Margalit echoed Misgav, calling Argamani’s presence in Netanyahu’s delegation a “disgrace” in a tweet to his 164,000 followers.
In response, Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli of the ruling Likud party tweeted that Argamani had spent hundreds of days in captivity and has just lost her mother, and noted that her partner Avinatan Or is still being held in Gaza. He called Misgav a “bottomless pit of gratuitous malice.”
Likud MK Eli Dallal called Argamani a “real hero” and accused her critics of “using her suffering for political criticism.” He said this constitutes “terrible, shameful and offensive behavior.”
“It is very good that Noa Argamani joined the prime minister’s delegation with representatives of the hostage families. She should be there to talk and recount what she went through in captivity and the urgency of bringing back all the hostages,” chimed in Likud MK Boaz Bismuth.
Yair Golan, head of the left-wing Labor-Meretz union rebranded as The Democrats, joined in condemning the criticism of Argamani, calling it “indecent.”
“None of us will understand the hell she went through,” Golan wrote on X, adding that even though Netanyahu’s trip was unnecessary and the premier has “abandoned” the hostages, “I respect Noa’s decision to join him.”
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum condemned the attacks against Argamani and her father, saying “the decision to take part in the prime minister’s delegation to Washington is a personal decision of each family.”
“If only you had heard Noa Argamani in front of the prime minister yesterday, how she sat upright and represented the abductees and the abductees who were left behind, you wouldn’t utter a word of criticism about her decision to fly to Washington,” argued Gil Dickmann, whose cousin Carmel Gat is one of the hostages.
Hostages’ plight ‘didn’t seem to resonate’ with PM
Meanwhile, Daniel Neutra, the brother of Israeli-American hostage Omer Neutra, said Netanyahu avoided responding to questions during the meeting “regarding the conditions or timing in which he would accept a deal.”
“He spoke at great length of the existential danger Israel is facing and said this is why he has held out for so long,” he said. “Netanyahu also emphasized that he ignored American pressure and invaded Rafah, and that only in doing so was he able to push for a better deal.”
According to Neutra, Netanyahu “expressed his commitment to bring everyone home, but loosely referred to aspects of the deal that he cannot agree to,” chiefly how many hostages Hamas will free in the first stage of the proposed ceasefire-hostage deal.
“He continually pointed to the importance of Hamas’s destruction. He said that we are closer to a deal than we have been yet, but he did not give the impression that he is willing to accept a deal in a matter of days,” Neutra added.
Speaking separately Tuesday to the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, Neutra said Netanyahu did not demonstrate that he understands the urgency of the hostages’ plight during Monday’s meeting.
“I have to say that the urgency of the matter did not seem to resonate with him,” said Neutra.
Netanyahu “did not answer when we asked him why he is only sending his negotiators to keep the process going on Thursday, instead of days ago,” he added. “We must continue to put pressure on all parties involved, including Hamas, to accept this deal now before more people die in captivity.”
Committee chair Representative Michael McCaul told Neutra that he was meeting with Netanyahu on Wednesday and would raise the issue with him.
Omer Neutra’s parents last week addressed the Republican National Committee, where his father stressed how Hamas’s October 7 onslaught was just as much an American domestic issue as it was a foreign policy issue, and said GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump told him that “he stands with the American hostages.”
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
