25-year-old Noa Argamani is among the four hostages freed by the Israeli army today 8 June in the center of the Gaza Strip. The girl had become one of the symbolic faces among the hostages kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October. She appeared in a dramatic video in which she saw herself being dragged on a motorbike by Hamas terrorists while she screamed: “Don’t kill me”. The 25-year-old had gone to a party in southern Israel with her boyfriend. She and him were taking part in the Natura party on the occasion of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. However, that gathering soon turned into hell after the Hamas attack which killed several participants and kidnapped dozens of young people.
The phone call with Netanyahu
“I’m very excited, I haven’t spoken Hebrew for so long,” said the girl in her first words during the conversation she had on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after his liberation from Gaza. «Not for a minute – Netanyahu replied – did we stop thinking about you and we didn’t give up. I don’t know if you believed it but we didn’t give up.”
Who is Noa Argamani
Noa Argamani is a software and information systems engineering student at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, a location not far from where she was kidnapped. On her LinkedIn profile she defined herself as a «highly motivated and dedicated software developer with a passion for deep learning, with a high ability to decipher algorithms. She loves team play.”
The kidnapping at the rave
The images of his kidnapping went viral after CNN broadcast them first. In the video, the girl is seen behind a motorcycle screaming as she is taken away. Her boyfriend, Avinatan Or, had been kidnapped by several men who forced him to walk with his hands behind his back. Family and friends of the two boys had expressed the desire for that video to be released, in the hope that they would be found as soon as possible.
The father’s appeal
Noa Argamani’s father told the Israeli media. «All my life, since she was born, I have tried to protect her and hug her, support her and love her. I wish I could at least encourage her in this difficult moment or say something to her.” The man said he had desperately tried to contact his daughter. But when he no longer received any answers, he began looking for her in the hospitals of Southern Israel. «When I got there – he said – someone told me about the video of her on her motorbike, but I hoped it wasn’t true. Then someone showed me the video and I saw Noa.”
The collapse of the mother
Noa Argamani’s mother had launched an appeal to the Hamas kidnappers to release her as soon as possible. The woman had stage four brain cancer: “My only wish is to hug Noa before she is no longer possible for me.” The woman, however, didn’t make it: last May she died without being able to see her daughter one last time.
