The name of Almog Sarusi is associated with one of the most painful moments of the war: the murder of six hostages in a Hamas tunnel nearly two years ago. Almog, who was abducted from the Nova music festival on October 7, survived in captivity for almost a year before he was killed alongside Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Ori Danino, Carmel Gat and Alex Lobanov.
On Monday, the Sarusi family was given a moment of light in a story that seems almost cinematic: the birth of Lavi, Almog’s brother, from eggs his parents, Nira and Yigal, had frozen 25 years ago.
(Photo: Instagram)
“Almog moved things around up there to make this happen,” his sister Amit wrote.
“The absence, the pain and the longing live inside us every moment,” Amit wrote on Instagram. “Nothing will heal the pain. Life simply goes on alongside it.”
She then addressed her brother directly, writing that he probably already knew because he had helped make it happen from above, and telling him that their parents had given him a little brother.
She wrote that the child would grow up knowing his older brother was a hero without equal. She added that the family loved and missed Almog and would not allow evil to defeat them, vowing to continue in his path and make him proud.
“No one was left with dry eyes,” Ra’anana Mayor Chaim Broyde, who attended the emotional circumcision ceremony, wrote. “This is the story of a long, complicated journey, in a reality beyond anything one could imagine.”
Broyde recalled that Almog, a Ra’anana native and the eldest son of Nira and Yigal, was abducted from the Nova festival on October 7. He survived nearly a year in Hamas captivity under what Broyde described as inhumane conditions before being killed in a tunnel in Gaza. He was 27.
According to Broyde, about 25 years ago the Sarusi couple underwent a medical procedure in which eggs were frozen.
“That is where the unbelievable story begins,” he wrote.
The years passed, the children grew up and life moved on. The frozen eggs were forgotten. Two years ago, amid the family’s grief, the parents remembered the eggs that had been frozen a quarter-century earlier and began searching for them.
Father Yigal holds Lavi
(Photo: Instagram)
Almog’s haunting photo in the background
(Photo: Instagram)
Broyde said the eggs were eventually found after a difficult search. The parents then began discussing the idea of continuing the family line with their children, and the family reached full agreement.
They next began looking for a surrogate who would carry and give birth to the child. A woman agreed to do so, viewing it as an act of kindness and religious merit. But the family also had to overcome medical challenges because the fertility technology used when the eggs were frozen was very different from the methods in use today.
The first attempts failed. Then came what Broyde described as a final opportunity.
An embryo was created, he said, one that would carry with it one of the greatest gifts that could be given to the Sarusi family.
The story was kept secret.
On Monday afternoon, at Noaleh events hall, the baby brother of the late Almog Sarusi was brought into the covenant of Abraham in a circumcision ceremony.
“A blood bond between two brothers who will never meet,” Broyde wrote.
He said the ceremony was filled with longing, tears and pain, but also something else: a baby who brought a broad smile to a family for whom the meaning of the word life had taken on enormous significance.
The family wrote in the invitation to the ceremony that a miracle had happened to them. Thanks to a surrogate, they said, a son was born to them on Yom Kippur.
They wrote that they would forever carry the pain of Almog’s death in their hearts, but remained hopeful that alongside that pain they would be able to find joy in the gifts God had given them.
Almog Sarusi
(Photo: Courtesy of the family)
Almog, 27, was at the outdoor festival near Re’im with his girlfriend, Shahar Gindi. Gindi was killed by terrorists and Almog was abducted to Gaza.
According to an Israeli military investigation, the six hostages were held in a tunnel in Tel al-Sultan in Rafah. On Aug. 31, 2024, Israeli troops found their bodies in a tunnel about 20 meters, or 65 feet, underground.
According to the investigation, Hamas terrorists shot the six hostages to death about a day before Israeli forces reached the tunnel. The military did not know their exact location beforehand.
The bodies of the six hostages were found with gunshot wounds to the head and other parts of the body. The assessment at the time was that they had been killed only two or three days earlier.
Their physical condition indicated that they had been systematically neglected and, among other things, had not bathed for a long period. There were also signs of earlier injuries suffered during the abduction that had been treated over time.
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by Israeli forces by chance about a month and a half after the hostages were murdered, had been staying in a nearby area, though he did not necessarily meet them or personally hold them captive.