Three-year-old Almog Levy doesn’t read yet, but when his father was in a helicopter on a journey home after almost 500 days of captivity, he wrote on a small whiteboard, “Mogi, daddy is coming home.”
This weekend’s biggest televised event may have been the Super Bowl, but in Israel, the only thing everyone’s eyes were glued to was the haunting images of three men released by Hamas as part of this second ceasefire deal, Levy among them.
For the entire time that Or was being held by Hamas after being captured from the same bomb shelter Hersh Goldberg-Polin was sheltering in, Almog’s grandparents, who had been watching him that weekend, told him the same mantra when he asked questions about his parents: “Mommy is not coming back. We’re still looking for daddy.” Or’s wife Einav was killed at the Nova musical festival on Octoer 7, where she and her husband were trying to enjoy some music together while her in-laws watched their son. “They were like in those American movies, meant for each other, never apart for a moment,” Or’s brother Michael recalled in an interview. The terror group started attacking the festival mere minutes after they arrived at the site.
Or missed huge milestones — Almog saying goodbye to diapers and hello to public daycare. As his family gathered together to help raise the toddler, they also fought the fight of their lives for their son and brother. Michael carried with him a teddy bear that belonged to Almog — a reminder of that little boy who needed his father so much — as he advocated on behalf of his brother in support of a ceasefire that would bring all the hostages home.
To their emotional reunion, Michael brought Or drawings from his son and a little ball he loved to play with. Along with his mother, Geula, and father, Reuven, he was the first to see Or after his transfer. “Everything is OK,” Michael told him in that first hug. “My neshama,” his mother said, the Hebrew word for soul.
“Or returned to us in a terrible physical state. For 16 months he was barefoot, hungry and under constant fear that each day could be his last,” Michael said later at a press conference. His worst day, though, was that Saturday of his release, when he returned to tragic news. “When he discovered his wife had been killed… how can one ever process something like that?” Michael shared. But it was that same day Or finally reunited with Mogi, who asked him, “Daddy, why did it take you so long to return?” an impossible question for a parent to answer.
Or’s other brother, Tal, recounted what happened in that meeting, which took place in a room specially up in the hospital where Or is currently recovering. “Daddy, you haven’t been there for a long time,” Almog said, adding, “You look different,” to which the 34-year-old responded with a yes. Then the toddler, who has been seeing a therapist to help deal with the trauma of his mother’s death and father’s kidnapping, asked him, “Why didn’t Mommy come back?” “Mommy Einav is dead, she’s not going to come back,” Or had to tell him through tears.
The father and son’s connection, Tal recalled, was instantaneous. They lay together in bed for hours cuddling, and even though Or isn’t allowed to eat the foods that Almog loves, he let him feed him. That next morning back at home, Almog asked to record a video for his father at the hospital: “Daddy, I love you so much, I’m so happy you’re back.”
Aside from his wife and son, one of the first people who Or asked about was Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who he said, along with his friend Aner Shapira, helped save his life. Levy had been sure that he had been released and was devastated to find out he had been killed while in captivity.
Two more men were released on Saturday, both looking gaunt and emaciated. Eli Sharabi also came home to unbearable news — his wife, the British-born Lianne, and two teen daughters, Noya, 16, and Yahel, 13, were murdered on October 7. Not only that, but his brother, Yossi, who was also captured, was killed while in captivity. He was reunited with his other brother, Sharon, who fought tirelessly for his release and kept on telling his and his family’s story, and his parents. Sharon wrapped a tallit around them while he wept. Back in England, his in-laws watched heartbroken, holding Lianne’s childhood bear which was rescued from the family’s home in Be’eri, where Lianne and her two daughters were killed. “He looks as though he’s been to Belsen,” Pete Brisley, Eli’s father-in-law, told Ynet, referring to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
Ohad Ben-Ami, who Eli knew from Be’eri, was the only one to get a joyful reunion. His wife and brother hugged him at that first checkpoint of return, and they soon video chatted with his three daughters, one of whom revealed to him later in the hospital that she joined the army while he was in captivity, despite her mother’s protests. Ohad and his wife Raz were captured together from their Be’eri home, but she was released in the first hostage deal in November of 2023.
On October 7, Ohad’s daughter Ella called a Channel 12 news broadcast: “I need help, they kidnapped my father. I saw his photo in the Gazan news, he’s in Gaza.” She was one of the first people to reveal to the nation that Israelis had been kidnapped at noon that day. When she first saw him again this weekend, she said, she collapsed to the floor crying out her apology. She shared in a speech to the press how horrified she was to see his body. “My dad has been through horrors,” she said. “We won’t give up until the last hostage is home. A second phase to this deal that will get all the hostages home has to happen, there is no other choice. We mustn’t let them perish there, there is no other,way.”
All across Israel and the world, people were shocked to see what Levy, Ben Ami and Sharabi looked like. They came back with news of hostages that had not been heard of before and of the terrible conditions the male hostages were held in, which were drastically worsened after that first hostage release deal ended. Hamas’s announcement that they are delaying this week’s hostage release has made everything feel even more dire. Every returned hostage and their family since this second deal is demanding one thing: bring them all back, now.
