Almost a year since his last sign of life, Hamas on Wednesday released a video of Israeli hostage Omri Miran, who has been held in captivity for the past 565 days.
Miran, a 48-year-old married father of two small girls, was kidnapped from his home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz on October 7 by Hamas terrorists. The family has not allowed the video's publication.
"On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, when it is customary to say 'Never again,' an Israeli citizen is crying out for help from Hamas tunnels. This is a disgrace to the State of Israel," Miran's family said in a statement. "Our Omri is strong and will not break, but our hearts are broken."
"For a year and a half, he and 58 other hostages have been waiting to be brought back. We will not give up and will continue to fight until Omri returns to us—and especially to his two daughters, who are waiting with all their hearts to hug him."
Lishi Miran-Lavi, Omri's wife, said in a debate held by Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, "we’ve been living in a fiction for a year and a half."
"What independence are you talking about? We surrender to a terrorist organization every single day," she cried out at the MKs present. "Every day that we wake up and there are still hostages in Gaza—we are surrendering to them. That is the real surrender!"
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About a week and a half ago marked the second birthday Omri has spent in captivity. "Lately we’re being told that the families are speaking from emotion and that a country cannot be run based only on emotion—it must be run with logic," Lishi said. "What logic is there in the fact that a 3.5-year-old girl and a 2-year-old girl stand in a square in Tel Aviv and blow out birthday candles for a father who has been in captivity for a year and a half?"