'It's the last thing I see at night': Mother of Israeli teen hostage recalls learning Hamas had abducted son on Instagram

7 October 2024, 12:22

The mother of a teenager kidnapped by Hamas during the October 7 attack has revealed footage of her son's abduction on social media still haunts her to this day.

Herut Nimrodi's teenage son was kidnapped by Hamas one year ago during the October 7 massacre at the Supernova music festival.

Ms. Nimrodi has not heard from her son Tamir since the day of the attack.

The 19-year-old was stationed on a base near the northern border of Gaza, with Ms Nimrodi telling LBC the base was part of Israel's operation delivering humanitarian aid to surrounding territories.

The mother of three learned her son had been kidnapped through a video on Instagram.

She told LBC: "My youngest daughter, she was 14 at the time, came screaming and saying, 'my brother is being abducted. My brother is being abducted!'

"She came to me with this video she's seen on Instagram from the GoPro cameras. I saw my son in his pajamas. He was barefoot. He was hiding his face so they wouldn't hit him because they brutally punched him and his two friends.

"My son usually wears glasses, and he had no glasses on. He can hardly see without them, and he was terrified. As a mother, to see your son in this position, it's indescribable. It's the last thing I can say when I go to sleep at night."

Read more: Victims’ families break down in tears at Nova festival site one year on from October 7 attack

Read more: Family of Israeli hostages say conflict with Lebanon is taking focus away from people still held captive by Hamas

Asked by LBC's Nick Ferrari at Breakfast how she got through the last twelve months, Ms Nimrodi said in the days after the attack, she expected the hostages to come home in two weeks.

"At first there were 250 hostages. We thought in two weeks, tops, they will be home. I'm looking back now, and I don't know if I knew at that time that it would take more than a year, and we still can't see the end of it. I don't know how I would have survived.

But I can tell you that you wake up each morning, you take a deep breath, and try to create a world for your daughters."

"My hope is that he's still surviving, but there's no indication for 12 months whether he's alive or not."

Asked if she thought the Israeli government was doing enough to bring the hostages home, Ms. Nimrodi said she could "only hope."

Israel has begun commemorating the victims of Hamas’ ‘monstrous’ attacks on October 7 last year with mourners gathering at the site of the Nova festival massacre where nearly 400 people were killed.

President Isaac Herzog condemned the ‘monstrous cruelty’ of the attackers who begun slaughtering innocent civilians enjoying a music festival at the site one year ago today.

Families of those killed attended the memorial site and many were seen breaking down in grief.

After a minute’s silence this morning, Herzog said: “A year has passed since life came to a halt, the skies darkened, and all of us witnessed the monstrous cruelty of the enemy that sought to bring destruction upon the Jewish people, the State of Israel, and Israeli society.

“We are all still in pain, and we seek to make space for national mourning, for the tears over the terrible disaster that struck us,' he said, adding that the world 'must support Israel' to bring peace.”

This morning the Hostages and Missing Families Forum announced that Idan Shtivi, one of the hostages taken by Hamas from the Supernova music festival on 7 October last year, has been killed.

Idan, 28, was abducted from the site of the Nova festival and his “body is still held captive by Hamas”.