When Omri Miran returned from captivity after two years, his family was advised to reunite with him gradually. His wife Lishay was the first to see him. A minute later, he asked where his father was. Omri walked out into a long hallway and saw his father at the far end. “He ran toward me. We stood there hugging for a long time. In those moments, there was silence. I could only hear both our heartbeats. Then I told him I love him and that I missed him terribly, and he said, ‘Dad, you have no idea how much I missed you.'”
Dani Miran, 80, sits in the cafeteria of Beit Ariella, overlooking Hostages Square, wiping away tears. A strong, warm, and witty man, he became a rare voice of calm and reason throughout the campaign to free the hostages. The interview is repeatedly interrupted, by phone calls and passersby who stop to express their love and concern for his son. He answers everyone patiently. There’s no more urgency now. Omri is home.
Video: Omri Miran reunited with his daughters at the hospital // Photo: Barak Meir, GPO
Dani was born in Iraq, immigrated to Israel, and settled in Khaltsa, which later became Kiryat Shmona. He moved to Yesud Hamaala, married, and had four children: Boaz, Nadav, Omri, and Naama. His wife died 33 years ago at the age of 46, and he raised the children alone.
He says that over the past two years he dreamed of Omri often. Some of the dreams were good, “but others were awful nightmares that left me waking up in tears, unable to even remember the dream. It happened over and over.” Now the nightmare is over, and he’s allowing himself to feel joy. For two years, he didn’t permit himself that luxury. He didn’t know if his son was eating, being punished, or being tortured.
Became a symbol. Dani Miran beside a photo of his son, Omri Miran. Photo: Efrat Eshel
His fears were justified. From the little Omri has shared about his time in captivity, it’s clear he was punished whenever he did something that displeased his captors. One day, when it was hot, he took off his shirt. Hamas terrorists told him that shirts don’t come off in their presence. They tied him up and locked him in a cage just 1.5 meters (5 feet) high. Sometimes the punishments were physical, like being kicked.
“He resisted them in many ways,” Dani says proudly. For example, when the video released six months ago was filmed, the first take wasn’t emotional enough for the Hamas commander, who ordered a second take. When the second attempt also didn’t satisfy him, the commander personally approached Omri, cocked a pistol, and pointed it at his head, hoping to “improve his acting.” Omri stared at him, knowing the terrorist wouldn’t dare shoot, and said he could do what he wanted, but he wasn’t doing another take. “That’s Omri. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree. I would have acted the same way. So would his brothers. They have their values and beliefs, and that’s a good thing.”
Omri told his father a bit about the conditions of his captivity, which varied depending on where he was held, he was moved frequently. “Some days he had a mattress to sleep on, others not even that. When he was above ground, he had a bed. Most of the time he was underground. He was never in danger from IDF airstrikes. He felt the tremors from the bombings, but he was never actually at risk.”
The welcome for Omri Miran at Kibbutz Keremim, this week. Photo: Alon Gilboa
Getting into character
The phone rings again, this time it’s a delivery person. He’s bringing tefillin for a soldier who regained consciousness after a serious injury and asked for them. Dani helped buy them. While we pause, he checks WhatsApp (1,031 unread messages), scrolls through, and finds photos of himself grilling burgers for 400 soldiers on leave from Gaza. “And I’m a vegetarian!” he laughs. As if campaigning for his son’s release wasn’t enough, he was everywhere, helping however he could, and he did a lot.
How is Omri doing?
“My impression is that he’s still a bit euphoric. It’ll take at least a year to process everything he’s been through. He missed his wife, his daughters, his siblings, his aunt, and his dad. Suddenly he’s seeing them all. He always believed he’d come back whole, and so did I. The day after he returned, he devoured a steak and a half. The next day, he went to the beach. I’m also walking on air. We haven’t landed yet.”
He recalls the morning of October 7, when he woke up early, saw rocket alerts in the south, and called Omri. His son told him they were used to rockets and not to worry. Dani went out to garden. An hour later, he saw the massacre unfolding on TV and called again. “Omri told me he could see terrorists all over the kibbutz from his kitchen window. He said he put his wife and daughters in the safe room and armed himself with two kitchen knives.” During that call, Omri asked his father to stop calling and just send messages, so they could keep quiet. Dani remembered that just months earlier he had warned Omri about the risks of living so close to Gaza, and Omri had reassured him: “Dad, do you know how much military presence we have here? No one would dare come in.”
“He was calm, totally logical. Every 10 minutes, I asked for an update. At 11 a.m., I messaged again, and got no reply. I wrote, ‘Omri, I’m worried. Please tell me what’s happening.’ Nothing. At that moment, I knew I had lost four loved ones. No granddaughters. No daughter-in-law. No son. After seeing what I saw on TV, I was convinced they were all dead. The tears just came. Even if you try not to cry, that’s the reaction.”
The captivity video of Omri Miran
Dani sat at home helpless. He considered driving four and a half hours to Nir Oz but realized he had no weapon, nothing to offer, and elite IDF units were surely already there. At 6 p.m., Lishay’s mother informed him Omri had been kidnapped, while Lishay and the girls were evacuated to Kibbutz Keremim. “What a moment of joy that was. One minute you think they’re all dead. The next, they’re alive! I started to digest the news and thought of Gilad Shalit, who was held in Gaza for five years, and Ron Arad, who never came back from Lebanon. I wondered what the future would bring. I still didn’t know Omri wasn’t alone. I didn’t understand the scale of the disaster.”
Dani realized he couldn’t help his son, but he could help his daughter-in-law and granddaughters. With Lishay’s parents trapped in rocket-battered Sderot, he went to Keremim. There he found the best of Israeli solidarity: the kibbutz opened guesthouses to evacuees, cooked, cleaned, did laundry, and took care of everything. Within hours, a long table was filled with diapers, soap, shampoo, shoes, clothes, baby formula, everything someone fleeing with nothing might need.
“I got to Lishay and couldn’t speak. What could I say? We cared for the kids in silence. I changed diapers, read stories to the older one. When Lishay was with them, she was the perfect mother, as if nothing had happened. As soon as they fell asleep, she went outside to cry and smoke.”
On Monday morning, girls from the kibbutz took the children out for a walk. It was Dani’s first chance to talk to Lishay. He asked how Omri had been kidnapped. She told him that at 11 a.m., terrorists came to their door with a local teenager, Tomer Elyaz-Arava, who was murdered later. Tomer told Omri that if he didn’t open, they’d kill him. Omri opened the door, and the terrorists took all four of them to the Idan family’s house.
The Mirans sat in one corner; the Idan family in another. Maayan Idan, 18, was lying on the living room floor, bleeding from a gunshot wound. At 1:30 p.m., the terrorists told the men they had to come with them or everyone would be killed. They tied them up. As Omri was being taken, Roni ran after him, shouting, “Daddy! Daddy!” Lishay held her back and told her husband, “Omri, I love you. Take care of yourself. Don’t be a hero.” That was the last time she saw him, until his return.
She was a lioness by day and broke down at night. Lishay Miran-Lavi, wife of Omri Miran. Photo: Gidon Markowicz
Children of life
Omri was 46 when he was kidnapped. Just after his 47th birthday, at the end of April, came the first proof of life: a video. “It was deeply emotional, like a rebirth. Until then, we’d had no word. A year later, Hamas released another video. At that time, they were also publishing horrifying footage of other hostages. We could tell Omri was outsmarting them. I saw it in his eyes. When he got back, he asked, ‘Really? You noticed that?'”
Alma was 6 months old when her father was abducted. Every milestone, crawling, standing, first steps, first words, happened without him. When she said “Mommy” or “Daddy” in front of his photo, Dani’s heart broke.
Roni was 2 years and 2 months old on October 7. “Omri raised her. Lishay worked long hours, so he was the main caregiver. His absence was huge for her. She asked, ‘Where’s Daddy?’ and Lishay said he was on a trip. That seemed reasonable, we thought it would be over in two or three weeks. Later she asked again, and Lishay said Daddy got lost on his trip and people were looking for him. Eventually we told her he was in Gaza, an abstract concept.”
Three months later, she said, “I remember bad people took Daddy.” A few weeks after that: “Mom, is Omri still my dad? He hasn’t been here for so long. Maybe we did something bad, and he left?” Six months ago, she asked the girls in her kindergarten to go with her to Gaza to bring her dad back.
Welcoming Dad. Omri Miran with his daughters. Photo: Elad Malka / GPO
Omri’s name lights up on Dani’s phone. He answers, his face softening. He promises to join them for Shabbat dinner. “We’ll find time to eat together again and again, and never stop.” When the call ends, he says that Omri was playing with Roni and got her a bit annoyed, and she told him jokingly: “If you keep this up, I’ll send you back to Gaza.” “Imagine that, she’s four and a half.”
At the end of the interview, Dani wants to thank the people of Israel. It could sound like a cliché, but not when it comes from this heroic man, so powerful, yet with tears in his eyes. “I want to thank the people of Israel. For all the support and solidarity at rallies, intersections, cities, and town squares. As everyone says: our strength is in our unity. May we return to being united, to respecting each other’s opinions, and to being a people once again.”
