Mother of hostage Noa Argamani dies of cancer three weeks after daughter’s rescue

Liora Argamani, the mother of recently rescued hostage Noa Argamani, has died of brain cancer, the Tel Aviv hospital where she was being treated said Tuesday.

Ichilov Hospital said in a statement that Liora “spent her final days alongside her daughter Noa, who returned from captivity, and her close family.”

“We relay the family’s request to respect its privacy at this difficult time,” it said.

Noa was kidnapped during Hamas’s October 7 massacre, which saw 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel by land, air, and sea, killing some 1,200 people, seizing 251 hostages, and perpetrating acts of brutality and sexual assault.

Liora, 61, had publicly appealed in November for her daughter’s release, saying she did not have long to live and wanted to see Noa before she died. She also gave media interviews and wrote letters to world leaders in which she asked for their help.

Her health eventually deteriorated to the point where she could no longer be active.

In October, Liora, sitting in a wheelchair, was asked in an interview with a local television station how she imagined their reunion.

“At least to be able to hug her,” Liora answered.

On Saturday night, daughter Noa spoke in a video that was screened during a demonstration in Tel Aviv calling for the government to reach a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages.

“As an only child to my parents, as a child to a mother who is terminally ill, the thing that occupied me the most in captivity was concern for my parents,” she said, adding that it is “a great privilege to be by my mother’s side, after eight months of uncertainty.”

Noa was rescued on June 8, from an apartment building in central Gaza, along with three other hostages in a nearby building, in an operation by Israeli special forces.

Hours later she was reunited with her mother.

One of the police officers who participated in the rescue raid told the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper that moments after she was pulled from captivity and was being driven to safety, Noa asked her rescuers if her mother was still alive.

Ichilov CEO Ronni Gamzu said at the time that Liora’s condition was “complicated and difficult.” He said Noa was able to communicate with her mother, who they believe understood that her daughter had come home.

“For the last eight months we have been trying to keep her in a status that she can communicate,” Gamzu said at the time.

Noa’s father, Yaakov, met her after a military helicopter carried her back to Israel. “Today is my birthday, and a gift like this I never believed I would get,” he said.

Noa, 26, Almog Meir Jan, 21, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 40, were abducted from the Supernova music festival near the community of Re’im on the morning of October 7. Palestinian terrorists massacred 364 people at the festival and abducted over 40 others to Gaza.

Noa was one of the most recognized faces among the hostages. Harrowing footage of her being taken into Gaza on the back of a motorcycle, distraught and reaching desperately toward her boyfriend who was being marched alongside her on foot, his arms lashed behind his back, circulated across the globe.

Argamani’s boyfriend, Avinatan Or, is still in captivity.

Though Argamani was able to see her mother, Meir Jan was less fortunate. His father died hours before he could learn that his son was coming home.

“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,” Almog’s aunt Dina Jan told the Kan public broadcaster at the time.

It is believed that 116 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — though 42 of them have been confirmed dead — after 105 civilians were released from Hamas captivity during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released prior to that. Seven hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 19 hostages have been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military.

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