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 its gratitude for all the support and love received but asks to respect its privacy while mourning,” the organization wrote in a statement, adding that the ceremony was not open to the public or the media.
Dina Jan, the sister of the father of the ex-hostage, announced the death of Yossi Jan the day before her son’s release. “My brother died of grief and could not see his son return,” she told Israeli public radio Kan on Sunday.
“The evening before returning from Almog, my brother had a heart attack,” said Dina Jan, explaining that she discovered her brother unconscious at his home when she went to tell him the good news. “We are very happy with Almog’s return, we are speechless and the brain cannot understand this,” she said.
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.
