Chinese-born Liora Argamani had experienced brain cancer. She was sixty-one.
Liora begged Hamas to free her daughter in a video that she published in December, stating, “I don’t know how long I have left.” I want to have the opportunity to visit my Noa at home.”
On June 8, Noa was saved during an apartment raid by Israeli commandos in the central Gazan Nuseirat refugee camp, where she was being held. Simultaneously, three further hostages were freed from a nearby apartment.
One of the most well-known photos from Hamas’s onslaught on Israel on October 7, 2023, shows Noa being terrified and taken away by terrorists on a motorcycle.
In an extraordinary onslaught that claimed about 1,200 lives, Hamas broke through the border, taking prisoner roughly 251 persons, including Israelis and foreign nationals.
In response to the news of Liora’s passing, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, an organization made up of friends and family of those taken hostage on October 7, said it “bows its head”.
At a rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday night, a video message featuring Noa—who spoke in public for the first time since her rescue—was broadcast.