For five months, Omri Miran did not know whether his wife and daughters had survived Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel. More than a year and a half later, he was finally reunited with them.
Miran, who was abducted from Kibbutz Nahal Oz during the Hamas assault, was released earlier this week and discharged Friday from Ichilov Medical Center in Tel Aviv after completing a series of medical tests. He has since returned to Kibbutz Kramim, where many evacuees from Nahal Oz have been living since the attack.
Omri Miran reuniting with his family
(Video: GPO)
New details of Miran’s captivity were published by The Washington Post, which described how the 48-year-old Israeli was shackled inside a cage, moved between underground tunnels and aboveground buildings in Gaza, and only occasionally permitted to listen to Arabic media broadcasts. He was repeatedly denied information about his family.
According to Miran’s brother Boaz, it was only after about five months in captivity that Omri was transferred to “a relatively normal guard who told him that his family is alive.”
Miran was abducted in front of his wife Lishi and their daughters Alma and Roni, then aged two years and six months. “Now the goal is to rebuild the connection between him and his girls,” Boaz said.
During his time in Gaza, Miran was moved between 23 different locations, according to another brother, Nadav, who said that “sometimes he cooked for his captors, and they liked his cooking. He counted each day in his head, not on paper. He knew exactly the date and roughly which day it was. He spent most of his time playing cards with his captors.”
Miran told his family that during the early months of his captivity, five hostages were confined together in a cage measuring 1.8 by 1.6 meters, forced to crouch without being able to stand. Gradually, the others were taken away until only he and one other hostage remained.
He also described being bound for three weeks, shortly after his abduction. His captors would sometimes place their rifles next to the hostages. “He thought about using one of the weapons and trying to escape,” his relatives said, “but he knew it wouldn’t help and that he wouldn’t succeed.”
In addition to Miran, two other freed hostages — Matan Zangauker and Matan Angrest — were released from Ichilov Medical Center on Friday after receiving treatment and completing evaluations. The hospital said Angrest and his family “will move to an environment that will allow for a gradual return home, while receiving ongoing medical and rehabilitative care as needed.”
Ichilov staff said all recently freed hostages “will continue to be accompanied by medical teams and social workers, and will undergo follow-up examinations and care as required.”