Israeli Hostage Noa Argamani: "I Was Not Beaten"

August 26, 20124

Another Israeli lie about October 7 and the hostages has failed, and this time, the person debunking the lies is as Israeli hero, one of the rescued hostages, Noa Argamani. But this lie, as it turns out, isn't so clear and the issue has sort of worked itself out, with media correcting themselves midstream before this distortion spread very far.  But for good measure, at least, I had this look to try and get a clear understanding of just what happened here.  

Noa Argamani is arguably the most famous face of October 7 abduction, seen taken away on a motorcycle, gesturing pleadingly towards her abducted, wounded and helpless boyfriend, Avinatan Or. While Avinatan remains in captivity, Noa was rescued, along with 3 others, in a controversial commando raid in Rafah on June 8. After almost exactly 8 months as a prisoner in Gaza, as she now says, it's a "miracle" she survived, and even got back in time to see her mother again before she passed away from brain cancer soon afterwards.

On August 21, the Embassy of Israel in Tokyo invited Noa and her father Yaacov to the G7 meeting there, to speak about her ordeal and why Israel has to keep on smashing Gaza to bits. Spoken softly in imperfect English, her comments caused a stir. She related the harsh conditions including scarce food and water (Israeli blockade) and the frequent Israeli bombing, and advocated for the release of the remaining hostages - including Avinatan. She also uttered some confusing words that seemed to provide Israel and its boosters with fresh confirmation of Hamas atrocities. 

Most of the media reports to this effect have now been revised, but New Delhi TV's report "'They Hit Me All Over My Body': Israeli Woman Held Captive By Hamas" remains unchanged. "Noa Argamani, an Israeli woman who was abducted by Hamas on October 7, has said she was beaten and her hair was cut in captivity by Hamas. "They hit me all over my body. Nobody came to save me," she told the media."

And here's what she said, according to an edited video clip run by Israeli channel 12 (via Oli London on X): "It's a miracle that I'm here." - cut - "Every night I was falling sleep and thinking this may be the last night of my life."  - cut - "All my (hair?) was cut and I was being hitted all over my body, but nobody came to visit me. Nobody came to see me. Nobody came to give me medical aids. Nobody. Until I got rescued. It's a warzone." 

It sounds kind of like her captors shaved her head and then beat her daily, so badly that every night she was afraid she'd be beaten to death in the morning. 

The haircut might seem like a strange non-sequitur to focus on, but it has a possible meaning known to many Israelis, though they won't want to mention it, that would suggest this was related to sexual abuse by her captors. 

There was a long-secret trial over IDF soldiers who, back in August, 1949 kidnapped  a teenage Bedouin girl, gang-raped her for 3 days, and then murdered her and buried her in a shallow grave. Even before the secret trial records were discovered and published by Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz in 2003, the case was hinted at in an entry in the diary of David Ben Gurion, Israel's first PM: "It was decided and carried out: they washed her, cut her hair, raped her and killed her," he wrote, calling it a "horrific atrocity." (The Guardian, 2003)

It's widely believed in Israel that the female hostages in Gaza are in fact being raped, probably every day. Evidence to this effect exists in one woman's testimony and many second-hand claims. But these claims could well be untrue, motivated by political agendas, and they're widely disputed by several accounts that no such abuse took place. Ms. Argamani has never mentioned such thing, but perhaps they thought she was hinting at it and moved to amplify that hint. Or maybe they realized they were inventing this hint.

Whatever they were trying to imply, Ms. Argamani would have none of it, reportedly issuing a response via her Instagram account on August 23. As Middle East Eye reported: 

"...two days later, she issued a statement on Instagram, saying that some of her remarks had been misquoted and taken out of context." 

"Contrary to some Israeli media reports, Argamani clarified that she was not beaten or had her hair shaved by Palestinian fighters." 

"I cannot ignore what happened here over the past 24 hours, taking my words out of context," she wrote, referring to the Israeli media coverage of her Tokyo speech.

This statement image is not on her main page now, but people have screen grabs of it, with Hebrew text over a "Bring Them Home Now" poster, and Noa's account name as the author. Here on the right is a grab from someone on X, taken after 18 hours, Here's another one on Instagram, from 1 hour after, with a translation reading so:

I can't ignore what happened here in the media in the last 24 hours, things taken out of context.

I was not beaten and my hair was not cut. I was in a building that was bombed by the air force. The exact quote is:

This weekend, after the shooting, as I said, I had cuts all over my head 

And I was hurt all over my body. (in red)

(I emphasize that I was not beaten, but injured all over my body by the collapse of the building on me)

As a victim of the 7th of October I will not allow myself to be victimized once again by the media.  

I don't think that's exact. See below - I think she copied over "this weekend" from someone's transcription of "as I said." Nothing relevant had happened "this weekend."

Again, this post does not appear on Noa's main Instagram page where (I think) it should be, Maybe she was pressured to pull it down? There are several copies on her "tagged" page, besides other images relating to her comments, although I think other people do that tagging. Social media accounts I trust and some professional journalists say she did in fact post this. No one's word is cited, so it seems they saw it there themselves. I didn't see it, so I'll cite them:

Brett Wilkins, ZNet (via MSN): "Responding to reports in outlets including The Jerusalem Post—which on Thursday ran the headline “Hamas Beat Me All Over”—Noa Argamani said on Instagram that “I can’t ignore what happened in the media in the last 24 hours.”"

The Jerusalem Post - in an updated version of the very article in question - would state as fact that "Argamani went to social media" to say these things. Initially, it did say "‘Hamas beat me all over my body,' Noa Argamani says in first testimony on her captivity" It sounds like the body beatings were administered during captivity. and by Hamas, or at least that's what she seems to have said. The JPost article has since changed, so here's a modified screen grab from Tameem on X

As I show below, the old headline still brought up a certain article when I checked, but now the headline is different: 'It's a miracle I'm alive" says Noa Argamani in first testimony on her captivity." I'm not sure what the original article text had said, but now it starts with a different cause and a different word for the "beating." 

"After she was taken hostage on October 7, she said she had cuts all over her head and was hurt all over her body." So that happened during her kidnapping, not during her extended captivity. But further down, they give yet another reason - the third one suggested in this single article:

Despite media reporting that she was beaten by Hamas," - some of that in the first version of this very article! - Argamani went to social media on Friday to say that her words had been taken out of context. She said she was not beaten and her hair was not cut.

"I said, I had cuts all over my head and I was hurt all over my body." Argamani emphasized that her wounds came from the collapse of a building after it was bombed by the IAF.

So she now specifies she was NOT beaten in captivity. This is new. Previously, one could assume or even say that was, since she had never specified. But now she has. We learn every day. 

Seeing the Channel 12 video, the translation issue still seemed confusing to me. So I looked for a full video of comments in order, and found one here that works well enough. My call that Noa twisted her own words a bit before anyone else did, but referencing a certain video helps it all make sense. Here's a full transcription of what she says, in 2 long segments:

"Every night I was falling sleep and thinking this may be the last night of my life. Until the moment ?? July 8th (meaning rescue on JUNE 8)? 'til today it was dangerous even all this time and I just did not believe that I was still surviving. In this moment that I'm here sitting with you, it's a miracle that I'm here. It's a miracle because I survived the 7th of October, October 7th, and I survived this bombing and also I survived the rescue." 

- cut -

"It's really sad that all the world sees the army doing in Gaza but they don't see what the terrorists doing to us 'cause they hiding us in tunnels and house that nobody can see us. In this video, I've been after the shooting with, as I said, (or "this weekend?") all my head was cut and I was being hitted all over my body, but nobody came to visit me. Nobody came to see me. Nobody came to give me medicine aids."

For "all my head was cut," auto-captions by sound gave me "all my have was cut." It's reasonable enough to hear it as "all my hair." "All my head" is, in fact, unclear English. A clarification was called for.

"Being hitted" also sounds more like being hit or beaten, repeatedly, than sustaining one-time injuries. But she says "I was being hitted," in passive form, not that Hamas actively hit or beat her, as some reported it. It could be 2 ways of saying the same thing but it's not. She meant she was injured all over. 

An unclear video is referenced. Noa gestures to her right at "this bombing" and at "this video" that came after "the shooting" (of the video? of guns?), I guess indicating a video that was recently shown on a screen to her right. Is she referring to her famous abduction? She's not notably injured in that, and no one has mentioned her being injured. Or did they show her rescue video? I don't believe she was injured in that either. 

It seems the only time she would suffer such injuries is in one or another of the two IDF airstrikes she survived in January. In fact, she describes just these same injuries in a video posted to Telegram by the Hamas-affiliated Al-Qassam and Al-Quds Brigades soon after, on January 18. I suppose this is the video shown, and not seeing that, the reference seems confusing. When she says "this bombing," and "this video," and even "the shooting," she means the bombing discussed in this (present) video they had apparently all just seen. 

"There is no water or food. All resources have been depleted," she says in the video, according to the translated subtitles. "Al-Qassam soldiers are treating us well. They are caring for us as much as they can but there aren't much resources left." Relating the first attack: Along with Yossi Sharabi and Itay Svirsky, "I was located in a building. It was bombed by an IDF airstrike." 3 missiles were fired, she hears, from an F-16. One was a dud but 2 detonated very nearby, collapsing at least part of their own building on top of them. "We were all buried under the rubble. Al-Qassam soldiers rescued my life and Itay," she says, but Yossi Sharabi was killed. Then, after "many days" but just 2 nights, she says the 2 survivors were being moved to a new, safer location, when their vehicle was hit in another IDF airstrike, killing Itay. 

After the two attacks combined, Noa says, pointing to her long, cascading hair: "I remained injured in my head. My head is full of shrapnels and have injuries in my body." 

This is exactly what she was referring to, like she said on Instagram. Her gestures and use of "this" suggest everyone in attendance had seen it and probably knew wjat she meant. Or perhaps not - maybe just a clip was shown, or maybe the sound or subtitles were removed, so that Noa had to add these details in order to relate her actual story.

So it's clear that the initial media reading was fallacious and that Argamani's correction is correct. However, her own unclear wording somewhat divides the blame. I don't suppose this distortion is just an honest mistake, but it could be. And, again, it doesn't seem this "lie" made it very far.

And still,  it is a miracle she survived Israel's brutality. 4 times she cheated death: once on 10/7, when she made it to Gaza alive on that motorcycle while many didn't - perhaps as many were picked off by IDF Apache helicopters as made it to Gaza alive. Then she saw 2 fellow prisoners killed in IDF strikes that left her injured and the sole survivor of her small group. And finally, as she notes, she survived the intense rescue operation that freed her and 3 others, but reportedly killed another 3 hostages (unnamed), along with scores of Palestinian civilians (over 250 reportedly killed, but this includes some fighters). That's 4 situations with a roughly 50% chance of death that she made it through. Here's a picture I made a while back,