Lishay and the wait for the return of her husband Ormi, who is held hostage in Gaza

When we met her in December, Lishay Miran Levi, 38, has a gaunt face. There are two pendants around her neck, the Star of David and a yellow ribbon, the international symbol of solidarity with those in captivity, displayed everywhere in Israel. On her black sweatshirt is the image of her husband called Omri who is smiling as he looks at their daughter Roni in her arms. She was two years old when she last saw her father. On  October 7, 2023 in the Nahal Oz kibbutz men with rifles took him away in front of her eyes, her little sister Alma, just six months old, was in her mother’s arms. Since then, every morning, Roni has asked if her father would come home that day, sometimes crying, because a small child may think that those who do not return no longer love her.  For Alma, however, her father is the man in the photographs, hung everywhere in the house and on the streets. Omri Miran, 48, Bring Him Home.

Lishay had met him shortly before Covid at a Purim festival. This event commemorates the salvation of the Jewish people from a conspiracy to destroy them. It was love at first sight. A year later, they got married and Roni had arrived almost immediately. “I love you, don’t be a hero” were the last words shouted by Lishay to her husband, as the terrorists dragged him away, in a car heading for the hell of Gaza.

For months, every time she woke up, Lishay touched her face. Almost incredulous that she was alive and imagining Omri in a tunnel, without water, without food. For months, she knew nothing about what was happening. Then, in April 2024, she saw him again in one of Hamas’s cynical propaganda videos. Thin and tried, he begged the Israeli government not to abandon him. Lishay was convinced that it was his profession as a shiatsu therapist that helped him to resist, not to lose his mind.

For months, she overcame her natural shyness every day and marched through the streets of Israel with hundreds of other family members and volunteers to demand the release of all the hostages. She could not even remotely bring herself to think of being able to live without that half of herself, he who was barbarically torn away from her.

The nightmare of her sleepless nights, yet no visible trace in the morning when she hugged her little girls again. Any day could have been the right one for Daddy to come home. Since October 7, 2023, Lishay has returned to live with her parents on the kibbutz where she was evacuated. Roni became very attached to her grandfather, a man who had not recited Kiddush on Shabbat evening since Dad was taken away.  He was angry with God.  It was Roni who asked him to come back and pray with her. Lishay is not religious, but when you do not know the fate of the man you love, you hope for miracles.

By Alessandra Buzzetti
A journalist, and tv2000 correspondent from Jerusalem