If the picture of released hostage Avinatan Or, 32, who came home in Monday’s deal, embracing his girlfriend, Noa Argamani, 28, needed a title, it could have been: “The power of love.”
It was the image of victory that Israelis and many others worldwide had been waiting to see ever since the video of the couple being kidnapped from the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, went viral.
If there was one visual that represented the sheer cruelty of Hamas’s attack, it was that of Argamani, pleading for her life while calling out to Or as she was being dragged away from him by the terrorists on a motorcycle, while Or, his face a mask of concern and fear, was forced to march alongside his multiple captors.
The clip was replayed in countless news broadcasts and made the front-page in several newspapers around the world. The Daily Mail quoted Argamani’s words to the terrorists, “Don’t kill me!” over the harrowing shot. Using the same image, the New York Post placed it under the headline, “War crime.”
Noa Argamani and Avinatan Or reunited after two years
But on Monday, that image of a couple being torn from each other was replaced by a new one as they hugged joyfully after two years apart. They kissed and then sat gazing into each other’s eyes, as if they could not believe they were together again.
So much had happened in the past two years. Neither ever saw the other while in captivity, but wherever Argamani was sent by her Hamas captors, she would ask about Or. She never received any reassurance that he had survived.
On Monday, it was reported that Or was held all alone for the entire two-year period of his captivity.
In June 2024, Argamani was one of the only eight hostages who were rescued by the IDF during the entire two-year period. She was saved in a daring operation that cost the life of Arnon Zamora, an officer in the elite IDF Counterterrorism Unit.
Her first question to her rescuers was whether her mother, Liora, who had cancer, was still alive. Argamani was able to see her mother again. Liora Argamani passed away less than a month after being reunited with her daughter.
Since then, Argamani has traveled the world, speaking before groups and world leaders, including US President Donald Trump, pleading for the release of her partner and all the other hostages.
Argamani, previously a computer science engineering student from Beersheba, was so persuasive in her advocacy that in April, she appeared in Time magazine’s 100 most influential people list.
At the Time’s gala, she said, “I did not know if [Or] was alive, and I did not want to know the answer, because it would have been too much for me.”
“Until my boyfriend and all the remaining hostages are home, I will not heal,” Argamani continued. “I will keep fighting as much as I can to bring everyone home.”
During all that time, Or was being held and abused by his Hamas captors; the man released on Monday was virtually unrecognizable, so much thinner and paler than the smiling young man seen in the photos with Argamani prior to October 7.
Doctors estimated that Or had lost at least 30% of his body weight, and he looked quiet and withdrawn when he spoke to the IDF personnel who initially met him after his release.
But when he saw Argamani, he cried out, suddenly animated. They sat and looked at each other, savoring the knowledge that the nightmare of their kidnapping – the moment of horror that Hamas filmed and proudly broadcast to the world – had finally come to an end.
Since then, Argamani traveled the world, speaking before groups and world leaders, including US President Donald Trump, pleading for the release of her partner and all the other hostages. Argamani, previously a computer science student from Beersheba, was so persuasive in her advocacy that in April she was named to Time Magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
At the Time Magazine gala, she said, “I did not know if he was alive, and I did not want to know the answer, because it would have been too much for me. Until my boyfriend and all the remaining hostages are home, I will not heal. I will keep fighting as much as I can to bring everyone home."
During all that time, Or was held and abused by his captors, and the man released on Monday was virtually unrecognizable, so much thinner and paler than the smiling young man seen in photos with Argamani from before October 7. Doctors estimated he had lost at least 30% of his body weight, and he looked quiet and withdrawn when he spoke to the IDF personnel who initially met him after his release from the terror dungeons.
But when he saw Argamani, he cried out, suddenly animated. They sat and looked at each other, savoring the knowledge that the nightmare of their kidnapping – the moment of horror that Hamas filmed and proudly broadcast to the world -- had finally come to an end.