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Former Hamas hostage Noa Argamani will join other Israeli and American taken captive by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.
For Argamani it will be her second high-profile appearance in a week. Last Tuesday, at an appearance before the U.N. Security Council, she became the first hostage to address the powerful, 15-member body, according to Reuters.
A video of Argamani, who was 26 at the time, went viral as it showed her desperate pleas as she was taken from the Nova Music Festival on the back of a Palestinian motorcycle. Although she was taken hostage, she was one of the lucky ones. Almost 400 other concertgoers were brutally murdered that day.
Her message to the UN was emotional and urgent, as is her appearance before Congress and the American people.
“Being here with you today is a miracle, but I am here today to tell you, we have no more time,” Argamani said.
“The crimes are unthinkable. We cannot imagine it happened, but it did,” Argamani told the council, of Shiri Bibas, and her sons Ariel and Kfir, whose bodies Israel redeemed from Hamas last week. “That’s why we cannot leave anyone behind.”
Argamani told the Security Council about the deaths of two captives taken with her. Yossi Sharabi died in the rubble of a building explosion, and Itay Svirsky was murdered by his captor days later, she said.
She spoke of a video that Hamas publicized of her pleading for help after the two hostages were killed. “I got nothing,” she told the council. “No doctors. No Red Cross. Nothing.”
Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, told the Security Council that “the world must understand our hostages are living in hell on earth.”
“They have no hope without action,” he said. “It is time to unequivocally condemn Hamas.”
The Jerusalem Post reported that the Israeli envoy added that Argamani “would not have to be here today if the international community and this council had acted against Hamas instead of looking away and remaining silent.”
He insisted that the council recognize that “Hamas has no place in Gaza’s future” and “does not deserve to be a party to any negotiations.”
–Dwight Widaman and JNS.org
