Israel and Hamas have reached the first phase of a peace deal aimed at ending their over two-year war, with the release of the 48 remaining Israeli hostages held in Gaza expected Monday morning before their transfer to the Red Cross.
Their faces have become symbols of grief and endurance, shared on social media and displayed on posters across the United States. Their stories, told through desperate appeals from family members, have become widely known. They include soldiers and civilians, parents and children, some last seen at the Nova music festival, where hundreds were killed and many others taken captive.
It remains unclear how many of the remaining hostages are still alive and will return home. They were among the 251 people taken by Hamas during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people. Since then, 148 hostages have been freed, most through earlier ceasefire agreements, while 51 bodies have been recovered and eight people rescued alive. Israel believes roughly 20 to 22 hostages may still be alive. Here’s a look at who they are.
Alon Ohel, 24
The German-Serbian-Israeli national was abducted from a shelter after fleeing the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023. He was one of four festivalgoers to emerge alive from a shelter where 16 others were killed, according to reports. Concerns for Ohel have grown in recent months, particularly after Hamas released propaganda videos in September showing him in visibly poor health. Former hostages have since reported that he lost vision in one eye and continues to suffer from shrapnel wounds sustained during the attack. A gifted pianist, his family has launched a global awareness campaign by placing pianos across Israel and in cities around the world to keep attention on his story.
Ariel Cunio, 28 and David Cunio, 35
The brothers were abducted from the Nir Oz kibbutz. Ariel was taken alongside his girlfriend, Arbel Yehoud, who was freed in January. David was captured with his wife, Sharon Aloni Cunio, who was released in November 2023 together with their 3-year-old twin daughters, Ema and Yuly. In February 2025, the Cunio family said released hostages had told them they had seen both brothers alive.
Avinatan Or, 32
Avinatan Or was among those taken hostage at the Nova music festival, abducted alongside his girlfriend, Noa Argamani, who was rescued by Israeli forces in June 2024 after 245 days in captivity. On Oct. 7, Hamas released a video of the couple that became one of the most recognizable images from that day. It showed Argamani on an all-terrain vehicle crying, “Don’t kill me!” and reaching out toward Or as terrorists led him away.
Speaking this week, Argamani said: “Avinatan is someone words can’t describe.” She told the Israeli outlet Ynet: “There’s this quiet strength in him that radiates peace. One of the sayings he loved was, ‘A lion doesn’t have to roar to let the other animals know he’s king.’ That’s exactly who he is – always present, even when silent.”
Bar Kupershtein, 23
Bar Kupershtein was taken hostage from the Nova music festival, where he had been working as a bouncer. According to the Jerusalem Post, he remained on site during the attack to assist Israeli police and security personnel, helping treat the wounded before he was abducted. In May, his family joined thousands of Israelis in nationwide demonstrations calling for a ceasefire that would secure the release of the remaining hostages. “The only thing that keeps us going is the hope that Bar is alive and surviving,” his aunt Ora Rubinstein told Reuters at the time.
Three months ago, his family received the first sign of life when Hamas released a propaganda video showing Kupershtein and another hostage. In the brief clip, shared by the Hostages’ Families Forum, the two said: “We are dying here with a pulse, we don’t feel human. We are again 30 meters underground.”
Eitan Mor, 25
Eitan Mor was working as a security guard at the Nova music festival when he was abducted. A survivor later recounted seeing him and a friend helping others reach safety before they were taken, according to the Times of Israel. His parents went on to help establish the Tikva Forum, a loosely organized coalition of hostage families that has argued military pressure, not an immediate ceasefire or negotiated exchange, is the most effective path to bringing the hostages home.
Mor’s parents said they received signs of life from him in March 2024 and again in February 2025 through information shared by a released hostage.
Elkana Bohbot, 36
Elkana Bohbot was abducted from the Nova music festival during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. According to the American Jewish Committee, he had stayed behind to help the wounded when Hamas gunmen overran the site. In May, he was identified as one of the hostages featured in a video released by Hamas’s armed wing. The footage showed Bohbot appearing distressed as he warned that ongoing bombardments could cost him his life and pleaded to be reunited with his wife and young son.
His mother, Ruhama, later shared that Bohbot’s son often uses a pair of toy binoculars he made in kindergarten to “look for his father.”
Evyatar David, 24
Evyatar David, a 24-year-old musician who dreamed of traveling through Asia and studying music production, was taken hostage from the Nova music festival alongside his childhood friend, Guy Gilboa-Dalal. In August, Hamas released a video showing him gaunt and pale, saying he was digging his own grave, footage that horrified Israelis and helped spark one of the largest ceasefire protests in months.
In an interview with the Washington Examiner in late June, Evyatar’s older brother, Ilay, spoke about the anguish of waiting for his return. “He’s my younger brother, and I really manifest that every time I think about him. I really manifest him returning and we play music again,” he said. “My brother is not just a poster. It’s not just a name.”
Gali Berman and Ziv Berman, 28
Twin brothers Gali and Ziv Berman were taken hostage from Kfar Aza, a kibbutz less than 2 miles from the Gaza border. Seventeen others were abducted from the community that day, but the Bermans are the only hostages from Kfar Aza who remain in captivity.
According to hostages freed in earlier exchanges, the brothers were alive as of February 2025 but were being held separately. They were initially detained with their neighbor, Emily Damari; Ziv was held with her for 40 days before they were separated. Damari was released in January 2025 during the previous ceasefire. Family members said they were later told by additional hostages freed early this year that both brothers were still alive.
Guy Gilboa-Dalal, 24
Guy Gilboa-Dalal was abducted from the Nova music festival, where he had attended with his brother, Gal. The two were separated moments before Hamas began its barrage of rockets; Gal managed to escape, but Guy was taken captive.
Over the past year, Guy has appeared in two Hamas videos. In one, he is seen with his childhood friend, Evyatar David, as terrorists film them pleading for their freedom while watching other hostages being released to the Red Cross. In another video released in late August, he appears alongside fellow hostage Alon Ohel, being driven through Gaza City as Israeli forces prepared to launch an offensive there.
Matan Angrest, 22
Matan Angrest, an Israeli soldier, was kidnapped from his military tank in southern Israel. The eldest of four children from Kiryat Bialik, near Haifa, he was taken during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. In June, his family released a video showing him being pulled from a tank by a crowd of men at the Nahal Oz military base.
Earlier this year, the family said they had been told by released hostages that Angrest was suffering from chronic asthma, as well as untreated burns and infections. His relatives have been among the most vocal protesters and outspoken critics of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. At a rally marking the second anniversary of the attack, Anat addressed her son directly: “I know you’re in pain, and I can’t hug you. I hear you whisper, ‘Come for me, Mom,’ and I can’t protect you.”
Matan Zangauker, 25
Matan Zangauker was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz along with his girlfriend, Ilana Gritzewsky. Gritzewsky was released after 55 days in captivity and has since become a tireless advocate for his freedom, often seen wearing a hat belonging to Zangauker that she salvaged from their burned home.
Marking the two-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks, Gritzewsky called for his release during an appearance on Capitol Hill. “Matan, I’m here every moment, every moment, every thought. I am here fighting for you, breathing for you, holding on to the hope that maybe in the darkness you can feel me. Matan, stay strong. Don’t lose hope.”
His mother, Einav, has also become a leading voice in the campaign to bring the hostages home. A fixture at protests, she has delivered impassioned speeches and even been hoisted in a cage above the crowd to draw attention to their cause. Zangauker suffers from muscular dystrophy, and his family has received credible information that his condition has dramatically worsened, according to the Jerusalem Post.
Maxim Herkin, 37
Maxim Herkin, a dual Israeli-Russian citizen, was invited to the Nova music festival at the last minute. Two of his friends were among the 378 people killed in the attack.
In April 2025, Herkin appeared in a Hamas video alongside fellow hostage Bar Kupershtein, the first confirmation that either man was still alive. A month later, Hamas released another video showing Herkin alone, his body wrapped in bandages, which the group claimed were the result of an Israeli airstrike. Born in Ukraine’s Donbas region, Herkin is the father of a 3-year-old daughter and was the main provider for his mother and 11-year-old brother before his abduction.
Nimrod Cohen, 21
Nimrod Cohen, a corporal in the Israeli army, was captured after his tank unit near the Nirim kibbutz, close to the Gaza border, was overrun by terrorists, his father, Yehuda Cohen, told UN News.
In February 2025, the family learned from a released hostage that he was still alive but in poor physical and mental condition. As news of the latest ceasefire deal broke last week, his father said it was the moment they had been waiting for: “It could have come much earlier. Let this next three days pass with no one trying to sabotage it.” Earlier this year, his mother Viki illustrated a special Passover haggadah, the text recounting the story and rituals of the holiday, in honor of the hostages.
Omri Miran, 48
Omri Miran was abducted from Kibbutz Nahal Oz during the Oct. 7 attacks. As Hamas terrorists stormed the community, his family, including his wife, Lishay Lavi, and their daughters, Roni, 2, and Alma, 6 months, took refuge in a neighbor’s home, where they were held hostage in the kitchen. The ordeal was streamed live on Facebook.
Miran and another father, Tsachi Idan, were taken captive. Idan was later killed in Gaza, and his body was returned to Israel during the last hostage exchange. In July 2024, a released Israeli hostage confirmed that Miran was still alive. The first sign of life came in April 2025, when Hamas released a propaganda video showing him in captivity.
Rom Braslavski, 21
Rom Braslavski was working as a security guard at the Nova music festival when he was wounded in both hands while helping attendees escape, witnesses said. His family later learned that he had saved several people before being taken captive.
In August, he appeared in a video filmed by his captors in Gaza. The footage, which showed him emaciated and in tears, sparked international condemnation. Released around the same time as a video of fellow hostage Evyatar David being forced to dig his own grave, it horrified Israelis and drew some of the largest crowds in months to the weekly protests demanding the hostages’ release.
Segev Kalfon, 27
Segev Kalfon was abducted from the Nova music festival after being seen trying to escape along the highway. Before the attack, he worked at his family’s bakery in Dimona, in southern Israel, and was studying finance at a university in Tel Aviv.
Moments before his capture, Kalfon was on the phone with his family as his car sat trapped in traffic amid the chaos. “We were on the phone for an hour with him until 8:10 a.m.,” his father, Kobi Kalfon, told the Times of Israel in July. “It was crazy, atomic pressure. I told them just to run.”
A friend later told the family that Hamas terrorists approached the vehicle and seized Segev. His relatives have since expressed deep concern for his health, noting he had been diagnosed with severe anxiety and had recently begun medication just weeks before the Oct. 7 attacks.
Yosef-Chaim Ohana, 25
Yosef-Chaim Ohana was working as a bartender at the Nova music festival when he was taken hostage. Witnesses said he had been helping others escape before he was captured. According to the Times of Israel, Ohana and a friend were assisting injured partygoers when terrorists seized them. The Jerusalem Post reported that he had attended the festival to celebrate his upcoming move to the United States, where he planned to begin pilot training.
In February 2025, his family said they received a “clear” sign that he was alive, though they did not provide further details. In May 2025, Hamas released a video showing Ohana alongside another hostage, Elkana Bohbot.
Eitan Horn, 38
Horn was kidnapped along with his brother, Iair, from Iair’s home in Kibbutz Nir Oz. The two were held together with three other hostages in a cramped underground cell for most of their captivity. In early February, terrorists filmed the emotional moment the brothers were told that Iair would be released while Eitan would remain in Gaza, a scene that later circulated widely in Israel.
In a June 2025 interview with the Washington Examiner, Iair spoke about the anguish of returning home while his brother is still in captivity. “I try to keep on living, but it’s impossible. I feel guilty about everything I do. When I eat something, when I drink a coffee, I feel guilty because I know that my brother and another 49 hostages still remain in Gaza,” he said.
Despite nearly 500 days underground, Horn said “humor, family, and faith” helped him endure. “Because if you lost your faith, you have nothing,” he said. “If I lost my humor, I have nothing.” He added that even now, he still feels a deep connection to his brother, Eitan.
Tamir Nimrodi, 20
Tamir Nimrodi was serving as an education officer in the IDF at the Erez Crossing when Hamas terrorists overran the base on Oct. 7. The last time his mother, Herut, saw him was in a video posted online showing her son being forced into the back of a terrorist’s jeep, wearing only his pajamas and missing his glasses and shoes.
Israel later confirmed the deaths of the two soldiers who were abducted alongside him. In the two years since, there has been no sign of life from Nimrodi and his fate is still unknown.
TRUMP TO GREET FREED ISRAELI HOSTAGES IN MIDDLE EAST VISIT, VANCE SAYS
Bipin Joshi, 24
Bipin Joshi, a Nepalese agriculture student, was abducted from Kibbutz Alumim, where he had been studying and working as part of a student exchange program on the Gaza border. Of the 17 Nepali students in the program, 10 were killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.
Joshi was injured and taken captive after reportedly throwing several live grenades out of the bomb shelter where the group had been hiding. Footage from that day later showed him walking inside al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. For nearly a year, his family received no signs of life until November 2023, when the Israeli military shared a video confirming he was alive in captivity. Joshi is believed to be the only non-Israeli hostage still held in Gaza.
