Moshe Emilio Lavi, whose brother-in-law is among the 240 hostages taken by Hamas to Gaza on October 7, spoke at a reception hosted by the Israel Allies Foundation (IAF) in partnership with the Jerusalem Post in the Capitol Building on Tuesday, November 14, following the March for Israel rally.
Addressing members of the Congressional Israel Allies Caucus, other members of Congress, Israeli representatives, and Jewish and Christian leaders, Lavi, a former captain in the IDF who now works as a management consultant, recounted the horrors that his sister Lishay, his brother-in-law Omri Miran, and his young nieces Roni and Alma experienced at Kibbutz Nahal Oz at the hands of the Hamas terrorists. “They were held captive in their house, and later on grouped with other families in a different house, for hours by Hamas terrorists, watching and experiencing firsthand evil ravaging their kibbutz, burning houses with people in them, executing people at gunpoint, committing the most heinous crimes one can imagine. While my sister and her two precious daughters survived and were rescued, my brother-in-law was taken as a hostage to the Gaza Strip.”
“ Fourteen residents of Kibbutz Nahal Oz were murdered, 20 are still missing, and five, including his brother-in-law are confirmed as hostages”
“Our hope as the family of one hostage,” said Lavi, “as members of a community of nearly 240 hostages – Israeli and foreign nationals, among them American citizens – is that Omri will return to us, safe and intact. We hope that America will continue to stand by our side and that its elected officials – you - will continue to emphasize to everyone, irrespective of their political leaning, that the release of the hostages must be the primary objective to be achieved. We are already six weeks too late to bring them home.”