Freed Israeli hostage Noa Argamani revealed how every night during her Hamas captivity she went to sleep thinking “it would be my last night alive.”
For the first time since her rescue, Noa spoke about her experience in captivity when she met with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa on Thursday.
The 26-year-old made headlines around the world when she was filmed on the back of a motorbike being dragged towards Gaza during Hamas’s incursion into Israel last October.
She spent 245 days in captivity before being rescued in a dramatic raid on a building apparently in Nuseirat, Gaza Strip, on June 8.
She said yesterday: “It’s a miracle that I’m here. Every night I fell asleep thinking this could be my last night alive.
“They cut off my head and beat me all over my body. Nobody came to visit me. Nobody came to see me. Nobody came to give me medicine. Nobody, until they rescued me. It’s a war zone.”
She stepped up calls for the release of her boyfriend Avinatan Or and the remaining 115 hostages, saying “we have to bring them back before it is too late.”
Noa Argamani talks about her experience today meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa
Noa speaks during a visit to Tokyo on August 21
Noa listens as Israel’s ambassador to Japan Gilad Cohen (right) speaks during a meeting with G7 embassy representatives during a visit to Tokyo on August 21.
Noa Argamani stepped up calls for the return of her boyfriend Avinatan Or (pictured) and the remaining 115 hostages
Earlier this month she revealed how she “fought until the very last moment” to stay “by the side” of the love of her life that day. “I still can’t comprehend the fact that I’m here now and you, my beloved, are still there, living each day in endless fear,” she said.
Noa became the face of the October 7 attack after a powerful Mail on Sunday front page captured those final seconds as she approached Avinatan while screaming at her captors: “Don’t kill me!”
Her mother, who had stage four cancer, feared she would not live long enough to see her daughter again, and begged Hamas to release her and the Israeli and US governments to bring her home.
After finally reuniting with her in June, Liora “spent her final days alongside her daughter Noa, who returned from captivity, and her close family,” the hospital where she was being treated said in a statement announcing her death.
Israeli troops rescued Noa and three other hostages after 245 days in the Gaza Strip in the largest and most successful rescue operation of the war on June 8.
Noa Argamani was flown to Gaza from the Nova Music Festival on October 7.
Her rescuers saw Noa being led to a car before being flown out of Gaza by military helicopter and returned safely to a hospital in Ramat Gan.
Her rescuers saw Noa being led to a car before being flown out of Gaza in a military helicopter and returned safely to a hospital in Ramat Gan, Israel.
Three commandos from Yamam, Israel’s national anti-terror unit, involved in the rescue, revealed that the first thing Noa did upon being rescued was to ask about her mother.
In an interview with Israeli magazine Walla, one of the commandos said: “His first question was whether his mother was still alive. I told him yes.
‘He looked at us left and right and asked again if we were sure. We told him yes, that’s why we came, to take you back to your mother.’
Despite the unfathomable trauma of having spent 245 days in captivity before losing her mother to brain cancer last month, Noa is using all her strength to fight for the release of Avinatan and the other hostages.
He recently traveled to Washington DC with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to pressure politicians to work toward a deal.