Freed hostage Noa Argamani said she has been unable to return to her life as she knew it after her time in Hamas captivity in a recent Instagram story post.
“I can’t describe to you in words the feeling that a person who was by your side the whole time in captivity is left behind, and you seemingly come back to life,” Argamani wrote. “A part of you still remains in Gaza, it is not possible to rehabilitate and return to a human routine in such a situation.”
She continued on to say that the dissonance between being held hostage in Gaza versus being back in the world inhibits her ability to function normally.
“You cannot really ‘sleep’ at night, you cannot eat properly, you cannot function at all knowing that just a moment ago, you were there in the Hamas tunnels, and now you are in a modern and connected world,” she wrote.
Noa Argamani pushes for hostage release
Argamani went on to describe how she watched two hostages with whom she was held in captivity, her friends Itai Svirsky and Yossi Sharabi, die in front of her.
“I saw and experienced two of my friends who were with me in captivity for so long die in front of my eyes after they barely managed to survive three months in captivity. It is unimaginable.”
She ended the post with a plea to bring the remaining hostages home. “How can you leave them there? How can you leave everyone alive there? We must bring them home now.”
At the start of 2025, Argamani told audiences about her experience on October 7 and her captivity in Gaza. It was the first time she’d told her story from start to finish publicly since her rescue.
“There are still 98 hostages, 98 families living this endless nightmare,” she told an audience in Miami. “Until Avinatan returns, my heart remains in captivity.”