Share Tweet By Billy Hallowell Editor
March 6, 2024
The brother-in-law of a Hamas hostage is speaking out about his relative’s dire plight, imploring the international community to keep fighting for Israeli hostages’ return.
Listen to them on the latest episode of Quick Start ?
Moshe Lavi said his brother-in-law, Omri Miran, 46, was taken captive from Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7 by Hamas terrorists who invaded the country and slaughtered around 1,200 Israelis.
Miran is married to Lishay Miran and is father to daughters Roni, 2, and 9-month-old Alma.
“He’s an incredible father to my two nieces, Roni and Alma [and an] amazing husband to my sister, Lishay,” Lavi said, describing Miran as a man with a “gentle heart.” “He’s a family man.”
Months after the children’s father was ripped from their lives, Lavi said the kids not only scream and cry for their dad, but that the older child verbally recounts the “violence she witnessed on October 7th.”
“How horrible it is that children at the age of 2 and 3 [are] hearing this?” he said. “She draws it in paintings. … We take her to therapy, because we have to do that to ensure that she gets every support she [needs].”
He continued, “[The kids] cry for him.”
Watch Lavi share the heartbreaking story:
Lavi, who lives in New York, said he initially assumed the events unfolding in Israel were of the “normal” variety of chaos sometimes imposed by the nation’s neighbors.
“It felt normal, because, to be honest, that was our reality for so many years,” he said. “And it pains me to say it, because I think … we tolerated it and allowed our government to tolerate it.”
But, on Oct. 7, he soon started receiving messages from friends and family and quickly realized the situation was anything but normal; the horror was soon more than apparent.
“It was the worst night in my life,” Lavi said. “I served for six years in the military. I was a captain, so I’ve had a good share of bad nights, but … that experience was dreadful because you feel helpless.”
Thousands of miles away in New York, Lavi was confined to communicating with loved ones on WhatsApp, watching the news and events unfold on social media.
“You read the news, you see on social media, horrific videos of terrorists coming into my hometown, killing people, butchering people,” he said. “It was terrible. My heart was beating, I was losing sense of time and space.”
Lavi eventually lost touch with his family and later learned about the horrific situation his loved ones faced at the hands of Hamas.
“My mom received a message that Lishay, my sister, survived, that the two babies survived, but that [Omri] was taken hostage,” he said. “I’m grateful my parents were rescued and survived.”
Hamas terrorists had barged into Omri’s home, using a teenage boy from the kibbutz to lure them to open the door in a faux effort to save the 15-year-old boy’s life.
“Later on that day, Hamas murdered [the teen] and most of his family,” Lavi said. “For hours, they were abused at their home, held at gunpoint, their house was ransacked, ravaged.”
That was just one of the many horrors to be inflicted on innocents that day, with some of the atrocities being live-streamed on Facebook. Some of that footage, which Lavi has seen, shows his sister holding her children as gunshots rang out, rockets blared in the distance, and people screamed in terror.
“They’re sitting on the floor, held hostage at gunpoint,” he said of his family members viewed in some of that footage. “It’s terrible.”
Lavi described how Omri was taken by Hamas that day and how it took 11 hours before Israel Defense Forces rescued his sister. Now, he’s doing everything he can to bring his brother-in-law home.
“We’re laser-focused on bringing Omri home,” he said, noting the family has no idea what physical condition their loved one is in amid his continued captivity. “We don’t know his condition, we don’t know his whereabouts, and we hear the testimonies from hostages who were there about the torture, the abuse, sexual violence, deprivation of food, water, proper sanitary condition.”
Lavi continued, “We’re terrified for what he’s experiencing, but, at the same time, we try and project hope, because that hope helps us to advocate for him with public officials [and] elected officials.”
He said he wants the world to separate the hostage situation from political issues and to recognize this humanitarian crisis is unacceptable and must be solved.
“I’m deeply disappointed and hurt to see that not all nations united behind our call,” he said of bringing hostages home. “These hostages are human beings … they deserve to return to their home, and their families, and … they’re held by a terrorist organization who seeks only death and destruction in our region.”
Watch the interview above for more on this difficult story.
***As the number of voices facing big-tech censorship continues to grow, please sign up forFaithwires daily newsletterand download theCBN News app, developed by our parent company, to stay up-to-date with the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective.***
