Lishi Lavi-Miran, whose husband, Omri Miran, has been held hostage by Hamas for 522 days, posted a video Monday on her X account. The video features her two young daughters, Roni and Alma, addressing former U.S. President Donald Trump: "Help us bring Daddy back from Gaza. Thank you." The girls also say in the video that they will give their father "kisses and lots of hugs" and later draw a large heart for him on paper.
Lishi also wrote directly to Trump in a post: "Dear Donald Trump, my daughters talk about you all the time. They know you are the one who can bring fathers home to their children. Please help us bring Omri and all the other hostages back to their families. We trust you. Thank you."
(Video: Lishi Lavi-Miran)
Speaking to Ynetnews on Tuesday morning, Lishi explained why she decided to post the video. "It’s always difficult for me to expose my daughters, but we’ve reached this point. We are fighting for Omri’s life, for the life of my daughters’ father, and for them to have a normal reality," she said.
She criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for failing to follow through on his promises regarding the second phase of the hostage deal. "The prime minister promised me and all of us, a month and a half ago, before the agreement began, that it was a comprehensive deal and that only specific details needed to be finalized for the second phase," she said. "We are now entering our second consecutive weekend without our loved ones returning—neither the living nor the remains of the deceased—and he is not keeping his promises."
Lishi stressed that she had never supported a phased deal. "None of us wanted this deal to be done in stages—except, apparently, for the decision-makers in Israel, who thought it was the right approach. I accepted it. I said that we need to start in order to finish," she said. "We started, but then we stopped. For some reason, everything has halted. So I am reaching out to anyone I can—whether at the UN last week, to Trump, to our prime minister, to Hungary because Omri is a Hungarian citizen—whoever I can. I will do everything I can to bring Omri and all 58 hostages still in Gaza home."
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Lishi also emphasized the need to end the war. "We know for certain that the fighting is endangering the lives of the hostages. We can no longer avoid this reality. We can’t say, ‘We didn’t know,’" she said. "This war should have ended long ago, for many reasons. One of them is to bring everyone back—Omri and all 58 hostages still there—and to allow all the reservists who have been carrying this burden for too long to return home. We cannot continue to normalize this situation. We have been at war for a year and a half, and we see no end in sight."
Regarding Omri’s condition, Lishi said: "We don’t know how he is. We do know that one of the released hostages was with him in July. That was the last time we received any indication that he was alive. People tell me, ‘But that was July!’ And I say, ‘Yes, but that’s better than before, because the last time before that was in late April.’ So at least now we know he was alive as of the end of July."
She also shared that Omri had been kept in the dark about his family’s survival for months. "We know he had some information in the past, that he knew the girls and I were alive. But we recently discovered that until our press conference following the release of his hostage video, he didn’t know for sure that I had survived. We can only imagine what it’s like to be told that your wife and two daughters were murdered, and then a day later, to be told they weren’t—playing mind games with him. Beyond the physical torture and abuse we know all the hostages are enduring, there is also severe psychological terror. Only in early May did Omri finally know for sure that the girls and I had survived and that we were fighting for him."
With Purim approaching in two days, Lishi noted how difficult it is to face another holiday without her husband. "I’m about to celebrate Alma’s second birthday. When this hostage deal began, I told myself, ‘It’s happening soon—Omri will be here for Alma’s birthday.’ According to the signed agreement, he was supposed to be home by now. But right now, I am far from certain—if anything, I’m sure he won’t be," she said. "Omri turns 48 on April 11, exactly one month from now. Will he mark the day? Will he celebrate? No one is giving us any answers."
She concluded by calling on the public to join the ongoing protest near the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv. "Come, join us, be with us. Not just in your hearts, not just in your prayers—but through action," she urged. "Don’t go out celebrating Purim because we still have nothing to celebrate. The Book of Esther is more relevant than ever this year. The children deserve to celebrate, to breathe, and we must give them as much normalcy as possible. But we adults have nothing to celebrate. Thousands of orphaned children, hundreds of bereaved families, and 59 hostages still in Gaza. Remember that."