The father of rescued Israeli hostage Almog Meir Jan “died of grief” just hours before his son returned home, his family have said.
Yossi Meir, 59, died of a heart attack before the news broke that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) had freed his son in a raid on the town of Nuseirat in Gaza.
The army were unable to contact Mr Meir to tell him the news and reached out to his sister Dina Jan instead. Ms Jan, who said she “was so happy I didn’t know what to do”, rushed to Mr Meir’s home in Kfar Saba, in the south of Israel.
She found her brother had died, after months of agonising waiting.
‘I screamed his name’
Ms Jan told Israel’s Kan News: “I drove like crazy, I knocked, ‘Yossi, Yossi, Yossi’, and nothing. I got no answer. The door of his house was open and I saw him sleeping in the living room.
“I screamed ‘Yossi’ to him and he didn’t answer me. I saw the colour of his skin, I touched him, but he was dead.”
Mr Meir had lost 20 kilograms since the capture, “glued to the television for the whole eight months, clinging to every piece of information”, Ms Jan said. She added: “My brother died of grief and didn’t get to see his son return.”
It is believed Mr Meir died on Friday night. “We are very happy about Almog’s return, but the brain is unable to absorb that this is the end. We are broken,” Ms Jan said.
A complex rescue operation
The IDF said the operation to rescue Mr Jan on Saturday was one of its most complex ever, with two separate rescues of four captives in broad daylight.
They said troops came under heavy gunfire from hundreds of Hamas forces during the operation, which brought together elite Israeli units in an undercover mission across air, land and sea.