(Jewish Breaking News) On Tuesday, Feb. 25, former hostage Noa Argamani gave testimony before the UN Security Council about the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
The Nova music festival had been a celebration of life until Hamas terrorists turned it into a massacre on Oct. 7. Argamani recounted the terrifying moment she was thrown onto a Hamas motorcycle along with her boyfriend heading towards Gaza.
“I was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists on October 7 from the Nova Festival along with my boyfriend, Avinatan Or. We were taken by force, separated, and entered hell on earth. I held Avinatan’s hand as long as I could, but in one moment of terror – we were torn apart from each other and dragged into the unknown.”
In captivity, Argamani became not just a prisoner but a protector.
“During my time in Gaza, I was held with two young girls – Hila Rotem and Emily Hand. At that time, Emily was 8 years old, and Hila was 12,” she testified. “I saw the fear in their eyes, the trembling in their bodies. I had to be strong for them, to hide the horrors so they could survive another day.”
While the girls were eventually released in November’s hostage exchange, Argamani remained captive with two men, Yossi Sharabi and Itai Svirsky. Neither would survive.
“One evening, the house where we were being held was bombed, and we found ourselves buried under the rubble. Itai managed to get up, but Yossi and I were trapped beneath piles of concrete,” she recalled. “I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I was drawn into darkness and thought this was it, these were the last seconds of my life.
“I screamed with all my might for someone to hear me, and I also heard Yossi’s screams. Screams of pain, of pleading, of a person trapped between life and death. And then, after a few seconds, I heard only silence. Yossi died next to me, alone, helpless.”
Two days after Yossi’s death, Hamas executed Itai.
“He was brutally murdered by our captors,” she recounted. “He was with me from the first day of captivity. We talked about our families, about the lives we left behind. He was a pure soul. And now he is gone.”
Then her brave testimony shifted to the Bibas family murders.
“You don’t need me to tell you about a 9-month-old baby, Kfir, and his 4-year-old brother, Ariel Bibas, and their mother Shiri. A mother and her infants – brutally murdered in captivity. They didn’t die in battle. They weren’t fighters. They were tender children, whose blood was spilled with unimaginable brutality.”
Freed during a daring IDF rescue mission last June, the 27-year-old closed with words that had sustained her through unimaginable suffering:
“What kept me alive in captivity and until now, is something my mother always told me: Always be good, always hold onto the light. So here, in this forum, I will end with these words: Be good. But more than that, be just. Act now. Bring them – all of them – home now.”
For once, the habitually anti-Israel UN Security Council sat in stunned, shameful silence.
