Weeks After Reunion, Mother of Freed Hostage Dies

The mother of a newly freed Israeli hostage has died less than a month after her daughter's dramatic rescue. Liora Argamani, 61, died of brain cancer at a hospital in Tel Aviv, reports NBC News. Daughter Noa Argamani had been seized in October during the Hamas raid and held for eight months before being freed in an Israeli military operation last month. Noa Argamani became one of the most high-profile Israeli hostages because she was filmed being taken away on a motorcycle from a music festival and because of her mother's failing health.

"I don't know how long I have left," Liora Argamani said in a December video, per the BBC. "I wish for the chance to see my Noa at home." Noa Argamani spoke of her captivity publicly for the first time in a video released over the weekend, notes CNN. "As an only child to my parents—and a daughter to a mother with a terminal illness—my biggest worry in captivity was for my parents," she said in the clip. "Although I'm home now, we can't forget about the hostages who are still in Hamas captivity, and we must do everything possible to bring them back home," she added. (More Israel-Hamas war stories.)