KINSELLA: Rescued Israeli carries 'pain' -- and also hope for remaining hostages

Article content

In a week of terrible news — antisemitic protests getting worse in Toronto and elsewhere, an Israel-hating candidate coming first in the New York City Democratic primary, polls showing a substantial number opposing Donald Trump’s justifiable attempt to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program — there is some good news. There is.

It comes in the form of a quiet, almost-shy young woman, Noa Argamani.

You may be unfamiliar with Noa’s name, but you have probably heard about the 28-year-old Israeli’s story. It is an extraordinary one, and it is a story that provides some hope in dark and dangerous times.

On Oct. 7, 2023, Noa and her boyfriend, Avinatan Or, were at the Nova Music Festival in Israel’s south. Early on the morning of that terrible day, hundreds of Hamas terrorists descended on the festival site, and commenced killing and raping and torturing the young people who had gathered there.

Nearly 350 of them were killed that day, and many more were wounded, some grievously. Some 44 were taken hostage by Hamas.

Noa and Avinatan were among them.

Hamas filmed much of it, and posted their crimes online. In one video clip, Noa is seen being taken away on the back of a motorcycle by a Palestinian civilian, calling out: “Don’t kill me!” Her arms are outstretched, reaching for Avinatan. It would be the last time she saw him.

She was abused and starved while in captivity, just like all the other hostages. Her China-born mother, dying of brain cancer, was cruelly tormented by Hamas videos claiming that Noa had been killed in Israeli airstrikes.

She was alive, however. And, one year ago this month, Noa and three other hostages were rescued by the IDF, Shin Bet and Israeli police in a joint operation at the Nuseirat refugee camp. Noa was whisked back to Israel and able to see her mother, who died just a few days later.

This week, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) brought Noa to meet people in Canada. The JNF, a charity which plants trees and builds facilities for the needy in Israel, has itself been targeted by Canada’s national government in another kind of vicious, misguided campaign. The JNF somehow found the resources to sponsor Noa here. And that’s when I met her, and spoke with her in Toronto and London.

I asked her what kept her going, after 245 long days in captivity. Her mom, she said. “I knew that her situation was not going very well,” she said to me, “so I knew that I had to keep going. I had to survive, to see my mother again.”

What happened to her and her boyfriend? And what does she know about her boyfriend Avinatan’s fate?

“When we saw the rockets over our heads, we tried to escape. We got into our car, and we tried. Our car got stuck and we tried to hide, for four hours, but the terrorists found us.”

She is absolutely convinced, she says, that he is alive. Wherever Hamas and her Palestinian captors took her, she asked about him. “I asked about him everywhere,” she says. “Is he OK? Is he here? Sometimes I was afraid to know the answer.” But she believes he is one of the 20 remaining hostages who is still alive, she says.

Noa Argamani is one of the few hostages who was rescued by the IDF — and one of the very few who has a loved one still being held. Asked if she feels better to be free again, she shakes her head a little bit.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Try refreshing your browser, or
tap here to see other videos from our team.

Play Video

“It’s really hard for me,” she says. “I feel like my heart is still in captivity. I’m trying to do my best, I’m trying to go back to university to finish my degree … But I feel pain. I feel the pain every day, every morning, when I wake up. So I ask myself: What can I do to push for all the hostages to be brought home? Right now, I just can’t go any further. I can’t plan for my future.”

Her focus is the hostages, now. Whenever we spoke, she kept a photo of Avinatan nearby.

There is the war with Iran, she says, there is the ongoing war with Hamas and Iran’s other proxies — and there is Avinatan and the others. It is a sad and difficult time.

“We need to bring them home,” she says. “I fear that some people will forget about the hostages, and the world will look away. We can’t afford that. I need to keep reminding them until my partner, and all of them, are home.”

And that would be very, very good news, indeed.