The father of Almog Meir Jan, held in Gaza for eight months and released this Saturday, died a few hours before being able to learn of his son’s safe return.
Former Israeli hostage Almog Meir Jan, held in Gaza for eight months, will attend his father’s funeral the day after his release, the Hostage Families Forum announced on Sunday. “Almog expresses his gratitude for all the support and love received but asks to respect his privacy while grieving”the organization wrote in a statement, adding that the ceremony was not open to the public or the media.
Dina Jan, the ex-hostage’s aunt, explained that she discovered her deceased brother at his home when she went to tell him the good news. The father of the family was the victim of a “heart attack”, she reported. “My brother died of grief and could not see his son return”she told Israeli public radio Kan on Sunday.
“He locked himself away and didn’t want to see anyone”
She described a painful past few months for her brother, whose health declined rapidly after October 7. “Yossi, my brother, Almog’s father, remained glued to the television for eight months, hooked on every piece of news. He loved Almog so much, he cared about him so much, he wanted to know what was happening to him, what he was going through. Every deal that fell through broke his heart.”added his sister.
He had lived mostly in seclusion since his son was kidnapped. “He lost 20 kilos, he couldn’t handle the situation. He locked himself away and didn’t want to see anyone. Everyone was worried about Yossi.. “We are very happy that Almog is back, we are speechless and the brain cannot understand this,” did she say.
Almog Meir Jan, 22, was freed Saturday morning during an Israeli army operation in Nusseirat, in the central Gaza Strip, along with Noa Argamani, 26, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41 years old. They were kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 at the Nova electro music festival, during the bloody attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement in Israel.
At least 274 people were killed during the Israeli operation on Saturday, which resulted in the release of the four hostages, the Health Ministry of the Hamas-led Gaza government said on Sunday. AFP was not immediately able to independently verify this information.
