In the aftermath of the day of euphoria following the dramatic liberation of four hostages in Gaza, Israel then experienced moments of heartbreak. Noa Argamani, the young university student who became famous with the diffusion on the web of the images of her kidnapping from the Nova music festival, was finally able to reunite with her mother Liora, hospitalized in hospital at the end of her life due to an aggressive brain tumor . Another former hostage, Almog Meir Jan, a high-tech expert, learned in his first hours of freedom that his father had just died and ran to a cemetery just in time for his funeral. In another cemetery, in Jerusalem, thousands of people flocked from all over the country to pay a final farewell to Arnon Zamora, the commander of one of the two anti-terrorism units involved in the blitz in the Nusseirat refugee camp (Gaza), killed by a Hamas militiaman in the apartment where three hostages were held. And finally Eliran Mizrahi, an Israeli reserve soldier who left Gaza traumatized, was ordered to report again as a reserve and took his own life.
The newspaper headlines were triumphant: but the hearts of the Israelis were also very contrite yesterday. Also because at the moment there are no practical solutions for the release of the other 120 hostages still in Gaza.
At the time of Noa’s kidnapping, her mother Liora (originally from China) had announced that her condition had worsened and had expressed the desire to see her daughter at least one last time. Since then, her husband reported, her condition has deteriorated greatly. Their meeting, eight months later, took place in a strictly private manner. “Liora took a look at Noa,” reported Yaakov Argamani, the girl’s father. “She just sketched a reaction. Maybe we saw a smile. However, we have the feeling that she realized that her daughter is back.” Since then, he added, Noa has not left her mother’s room, she wants to spend as much time as possible with her.
An even more tragic fate greeted Almog Meir Jan. On Saturday morning, when the army confirmed that he had been liberated and that he was in good condition, his aunt rushed to his father who had been suffering from depression for months and had isolated himself from the rest of the world. Without him, she said, life had no meaning. “I found the door of his house open – said the woman –. He was lying in the living room, on a sofa. I touched him: he was cold. He had been dead for a few hours. He didn’t have time to find out that his son had been freed.” According to emergency services, she had suffered a heart attack. In a cemetery in Jerusalem a crowd of Israelis then wanted to participate in the funeral of Commander Zamora. Three of the four hostages freed on Saturday, according to the IDF, were in the home of a Palestinian journalist: “Al Jazeera reporter Abdullah Jamal was a Hamas operative and held hostage, together with his family, Almog Meir, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv at his home in Nuseirat”. Hamas instead released another video in which it claims that three more Israeli hostages had lost their lives, one of whom was a US citizen. Their names have not been specified.
