Yossi Jan, 57, died on Saturday just hours before his son Almog Meir Jan was rescued from captivity in Gaza along with three other Israeli hostages.
Officials arrived at Yossi’s home in the central Israeli city of Kfar Saba around noon to inform him of his son’s rescue, only to find him unconscious. Magen David Adom paramedics called to the scene determined his death. The cause of death remains under investigation.
Almog, 21, Noa Argamani, 26, Andrey Kozlov, 27 and Shlomi Ziv, 40, were rescued on Saturday morning in a complex operation in the heart of a crowded Gaza residential neighborhood.
All four were abducted by Hamas from the Supernova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im during the Oct. 7 massacre.
They are recovering at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, where they were reunited with their families.
“My brother died of grief and didn’t get to see his son return. The night before Almog’s return, my brother’s heart stopped. He didn’t get to see his son return,” Dina Jan, Almog’s aunt, told Kan News.
Rabbi Lior Engelman, Yosef’s friend, sent a message to a WhatsApp group in Kfar Saba on Saturday night, writing that “Yosef loved Almog with all his heart and was tormented day after day. His heart couldn’t stand it, and tragically, 20 hours before the happiness that awaited him—he fell asleep.”
Yossi will be buried at 5:30 p.m. at Kfar Saba’s Neve Yamin cemetery.
Orit Meir, Almog’s mother, pictured during an emotional reunion at the hospital on Saturday, celebrated her birthday on Sunday.
“He had a kind of calendar, a diary, and knew how many days he was there [in captivity]. He knew that I had a birthday today, and he knew a month ago that he had a birthday,” she told Army Radio.
