Just over three weeks after 26-year-old hostage Noa Argamani was rescued from captivity in the Gaza Strip, her terminally ill mother Liora has died, Israeli sources reported on Tuesday.
According to Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv and the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which was founded after hundreds of people were abducted in the Hamas attack on southern Israel last October, the cause of death was cancer.
Liora Argamani, who was reportedly 61 at the time of her death, made a series of emotional videos in which she appealed to her daughter’s kidnappers to see her one more time before she died.
In June, Israeli special forces freed Noa and three other hostages from the hands of the Islamist militia.
Write on X, Benny Gantzuntil recently a member of the now-dissolved war cabinet, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed their condolences to Noa and her father.
The fate of the young Israeli woman, who was kidnapped during the Nova music festival, deeply affected people in Israel and around the world.
Images of her being abducted by terrorists on a motorbike and crying in despair have become a symbol of the plight of the hostages captured on October 7. Her boyfriend, who was also abducted, remains held in Gaza.
During a demonstration against the Israeli government last weekend, Noa Argamani made her first public call against hatred since her release.
“I wish that we all have more peaceful days, calmer days, surrounded by family, friends and good people,” she said in the message broadcast Saturday night from Tel Aviv. “The most important thing is that we learn to love and not hate.”
