Just over three weeks after 26-year-old hostage Noa Argamani was rescued from captivity in the Gaza Strip, her terminally ill mother Liora has died, Israeli sources said on Tuesday.
The cause of death was cancer, according to the Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv and the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which was created after hundreds of people were abducted in last October's attack on southern Israel by Hamas gunmen.
Liora Argamani, who was reportedly 61 at the time of her death, made a series of emotional videos appealing to her daughter's captors to allow her to see her again before she died.
In June, Israeli special forces rescued Noa and three more hostages from the hands of the Islamist militia force.
Writing on X, Benny Gantz, until recently a member of the now dissolved war cabinet, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed their condolences to Noa and her father.
The fate of the young Israeli woman, who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival, deeply touched people in Israel and around the world.
Footage of her being abducted by terrorists on a motorbike and crying desperately became symbolic of the plight of the hostages seized on October 7. Her boyfriend, who was also kidnapped, is still being held in Gaza.
At a demonstration against the Israeli government at the weekend, Noa Argamani made her first public appeal against hatred since her release.
"I wish for all of us to have more peaceful days, quieter days, to be surrounded by family, friends and good people," she said in the message shown in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening. "Most importantly, may we learn to love and not to hate."
