Israeli Omri Miran hugs his daughters after 2 years

After more than 700 days in captivity in the Gaza Strip, 30-year-old Israeli Omri Miran hugged his little daughters againRoni and Alma. He was released this Monday (13) as part of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas, mediated by the USA.

Miran’s reunion with his family took place in a Tel Aviv hospital. The act ended a two-year wait since the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack, when Miran was sequestrated in the kibotz Nahal Oznear the border with Gaza, by Palestinian Hamas terrorists who invaded Israel.

“After more than 700 long, painful and harrowing days, Omri will finally receive a healing hug from Roni and Alma,” the family said in a statement released by the Forum for the Families of Hostages and the Missing.

On Sunday night (12), about 12 hours before his release, Omri’s wife, Lishay Miran-Lavi, published on social media a photo of her daughters dressed in pink, with suitcases packed to meet their father.

“Prepared and ready for daddy Omri”, she wrote in X. In an interview with a local radio, the father of the now former hostage, Dani Miran, reported the feeling of relief after months of uncertainty about his son’s condition.

“During this year, there have been much more difficult things,” he said.

Omri was one of 20 live hostages released in this first phase of the agreement, which also provides for the delivery of the bodies of 28 Israelis murdered by Hamas and the release of almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, including 250 convicted of terrorism. The pact was made possible after a partial withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and was mediated by Arab countries and the United States.

During her husband’s two years of captivity, Lishay became one of the most vocal voices in the movement for the families of the hostages. In an interview with Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), granted last Wednesday (8), she reported the pain of separation and the trauma experienced by her daughters.

“Roni was two years old, now she’s four. She remembers everything. She remembers the knife, the weapons, she remembers that they took her father. She remembers the last hug that Omri gave her”, he said.

In April, the wife wrote a public birthday letter to her husband, published by CBNin which he expressed the absence of his father in the family routine.

“Today is your birthday. There should be joy in our home… instead there is silence. A deafening silence. Because you are still in Gaza – held hostage by Hamas,” he wrote. “You missed so many moments. Alma’s first words, Roni’s first day of school, every hug, every bedtime story.”

Omri’s brother-in-law, Moshe Lavi, also denounced, months before his release, the conditions of captivity.

“We have only received partial, limited and sometimes horrific evidence that he was alive. We don’t know how much he is suffering, deprived of food, water, sunlight, tortured, abused, as I speak to you now,” he declared.

With Omri’s return, the family recognized that the road to recovery will be long.

“We are at the beginning of a complex and challenging, but moving journey of rehabilitation,” said an official statement released by his family. “May Omri’s return mark the beginning of this healing and the unity of our people”, adds the text.

According to the Israeli broadcaster Channel 12Miran spoke to his daughters via video shortly after his release, alongside his wife and father, at the Re’im military base. He said he would soon find out “how Alma learned to say ‘Abba’” — the Hebrew word for “daddy” — which she didn’t know how to pronounce when he was taken away.

Two years after being kidnapped in full view of his daughters, Omri Miran has finally returned home. For Roni and Alma, the nightmare gave way to a reunion – the embrace that Hamas tried to steal.