Former Hamas hostage Noa Argamani met with top global diplomats on Wednesday to raise the plight of the 109 captives still being held by the terrorist group in the Gaza Strip.
“Every night I was falling asleep and thinking, this may be the last night of my life,” the 26-year-old told senior diplomats from G7 countries in Tokyo.
“And until the moment I was [rescued] ... I just did not believe that I’m still surviving,” she added. “And in this moment that I’m ... sitting with you, it’s a miracle that I’m here,” she said.
Argamani, Shlomi Ziv, Andrey Kozlov and Almog Meir Jan were rescued from two separate locations in Nuseirat Camp in central Gaza on June 8. The operation was renamed in honor of Chief Inspector Arnon Zamora, a member of the Israel Border Police’s “Yamam” National Counter-Terrorism Unit who was mortally wounded during the mission.
Argamani and her father Yaakov joined Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington for his address to Congress last month.
“Avinatan, my boyfriend, is still there [in Gaza], and we need to bring them back before it’s going to be too late. We don’t want to lose more people than we already lost,” said Argamani on Wednesday.
The Israel Defense Forces on Tuesday morning recovered the bodies of six hostages kidnapped on Oct. 7, from a tunnel in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
Argamani and Avinatan Or were abducted from the Nova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im during the murderous Hamas onslaught in southern Israel. A total of 354 people were killed during the festival massacre.
Argamani wrote a public letter to Or this week on Tu B’Av, an Israeli holiday marked by couples exchanging gifts and heartfelt expressions of love, much like Valentine’s Day in other parts of the world.
“Happy Tu B’Av, my love. Every year, you’d surprise me with a bouquet and share the story of Tu B’Av’s origins—how young women in white would dance in the vineyards of Shiloh under the full moon, hoping to find their soulmates. That’s why Tu B’Av symbolizes beauty and love,” wrote Argamani.
She concluded with a heartfelt wish: “Here’s to many more kisses and days filled with love—together, not apart.”
Earlier this month, the foreign ministers of the G7—Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as the European Union—discussed “the urgent need for de-escalation in the Middle East.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his colleagues talked about “ongoing efforts to achieve a ceasefire that secures the release of hostages and allows a surge of humanitarian aid to Gaza,” per a U.S. State Department readout.
“They discussed how a ceasefire in Gaza would unlock the possibility of greater peace and stability in the region, including across the Blue Line,” Foggy Bottom added, referring to the Israel-Lebanon border area. “The secretary and foreign ministers reiterated their commitment to Israel’s security and urged maximum restraint from all parties to keep the conflict from escalating.”
