3 hours ago
4
ARTICLE AD BOX
"We have a clear indication that he is alive," The aunt of hostage Yosef-Haim Ohana, Hannah Mastronov, told Ynet.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF FEBRUARY 12, 2025 09:16 Updated: FEBRUARY 12, 2025 09:58
Yosef Haim Ohana
(photo credit: Bring Them Home Now)
The aunt of hostage Yosef-Chaim Ohana, Hannah Mastronov, told Ynet that the family received a sign of life from Yosef after the release of the three former hostages on Saturday.
"We have a clear indication that he is alive," she said.
Ohana, 24, from Kiryat Malachi, was kidnapped from the Nova Festival site near Reim. Ohana attended the festival after his friend, Daniel Sharabi, invited him and a few other people to celebrate his goodbye party, since Sharabi was supposed to leave for America to take a pilot's course.
"Yosef-Chaim is a strong man - but even his strength has limits," she added.
What happened to Ohana at the festival?
Sharabi recalled the discussion of when to attend the festival when speaking with the Jerusalem Post in New York. He said that he wanted to go to the festival in the morning, but Ohana wanted to go at night and so, they compromised and went at night.
At 6:30 a.m., the music stopped as the rocket sirens started to go off. Sharabi explained how when they started to leave the party, they saw a girl having a panic attack, so Yosef-Chaim and Sharabi, who were medics in the Givati Brigade during their Army service together, stopped to help her. Two of their friends ran to their car and started packing up.
Ohana and Sharabi both helped anyone that they saw who was wounded by gunfire and took them to paramedics to get proper treatment, Ohana's mother explained. She said that when she spoke to his friend, "they tried to run towards the main road, but then they saw that they were being fired at by RPGs. Yosef-Chaim ran to the left, and his friend ran to the right and hid under a car."
Sharabi explained: "I saw him stand up behind a car. He popped up [and] went down - he got shot from an RPG."
The next time Sharabi saw Ohana was from a video Hamas posted showing them kidnapping Ohana and bringing him to Gaza.
English (US) ·