The wife of an Israeli hostage has penned a heartbreaking open letter to her kidnapped husband, noting how he is missing their baby growing up – saying, “I wonder, will you be free to see her walk for the first time?”
Lishay Lavi, a 38-year-old mother of two, says she has been living a nightmare since her husband, Omri Miran, 46, was kidnapped from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7.
Now 108 days into the Israel-Hamas war, Lavi wrote about how she and their two daughters, Roni, 2, and Alma, 5 months, are enduring without him.
“Alma began crawling soon after you were taken from us,” Lavi said. “She now sits and stands as well and tries to eat on her own.
“She smiles and reaches for the space you once occupied as if trying to grasp a memory that slips through her tiny fingers.
“I wonder, will you be free to see her walk for the first time?”
Lavi added that Roni has also begun talking more clearly, which includes asking about her father every night.
“She speaks of the bad people who took you away in front of our eyes. She draws you every day,” Lavi said. “And her smile reminds me of you.
“Her eyes search mine for reassurance, and I try to give her the certainty she craves. But real comfort can only come when you are returned to us,” she pointed out.
Lavi also tells Miran that she has been writing other letters to him every day, highlighting “our pain, our agony, our despair,” comparing herself to Penelope, Odysseus’ wife who waited for him to return home in the Greek epic, “The Odyssey.”
The heartbroken wife revealed to her husband that the family is now living in a shelter, as their neighborhood in Nir Oz had been completely destroyed by Hamas.
The letter concludes with Lavi slamming the international community for failing to do everything possible to see the estimated 132 hostages still in Gaza released.
“How did we arrive at a place where the humanitarian pleas of families are met with indifference and mockery, where the principles that should guide us are overshadowed by political posturing,” she asked.
“There are times we feel that our government, too, has forsaken us. Though I truly believe it is committed to bringing about your, and all the hostages, release,” she reassured Miran.
The letter was published hours before it was revealed that Israel had sent out a new proposal to Hamas seeking to exchange all the hostages for a truce that would halt the fighting in Gaza for up to two months.
The proposed hostage deal would see all the captive women and men who are over 60 years old and who are in critical condition or have severe health problems released first.
The next phases would free hostages who are not affiliated with the Israel Defense Forces, and then Hamas would release Israeli soldiers, as well as the bodies of hostages who died in captivity, the officials said.
Israel estimates that around 132 hostages remain in Gaza, 27 of whom are believed to be dead.
It remains unclear if Hamas will accept the deal, as it has openly rejected two key points the terrorists have sought after, with the Jewish State refusing to free all its Palestinian prisoners and completely ending its operations in Gaza in exchange for the hostages.