Agam Berger finally returns home after 482 days of imprisonment in Hamas. The world first saw her in horror footage on October 7, 2023 – bleeding, fear, and with four other young women soldiers kidnapped from Nahal Oz IDF base. Terrorists marched on the streets of Gaza as trophy.
At a recent ceremony at the Yerzkr Synagogue in Tel Aviv, Berger turned to God to help 59 hostages of God who remained in Gaza.
She trembled in the synagogue, “Living and dead, we will not rest until they all come back.”
Officials said
“I began to feel God shaking my world,” her mother, Merav Berger, told Fox News Digital. She began to keep the Sabbath in her daughter’s honor – she had known whether her daughter was still alive. “We grew up with tradition, but not religious. Agam didn’t reserve the Sabbath before. But, somehow, she found God everywhere in Gaza.”
She said that what keeps her daughter moving forward is faith and identity. She told the Israeli media, “They took her body away, but they couldn’t grasp her soul and identity.”
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“We heard the voices – the Israelis said we deserved the fight for. It gave us strength,” she and the hostage Liri Albag were given to the radio station early in their imprisonment. “But after the first hostage rescue, they took the radio. They were more paranoid than ever before.”
In January 2024, Hamas guards took them to recycle a bunch of items from an abandoned Israeli military post: a map, newspaper and a Jewish prayer book.
Agam’s mother later revealed that her daughter dreamed of the Jewish Prayer Book (Jewish Prayer Book) a few days ago. “And then arrive.” “How did you explain it? That’s not an opportunity. That’s faith.”
With that book, she began to mark Jewish time. “At first we had a watch,” she told Israel Public Radio. “That’s what we know when it’s Sabbath and when it’s Atonement. I fasted. Passover, I turned down bread. I asked for cornmeal-they brought. In a strange way, they respected my religious beliefs.”
Release of Israel’s hostages is the first to tell about his 505-day surviving Hamas hell
As months of delays were delayed, conditions worsened. Hamas guards often rotated, she said, noting that many were cruel and others were indifferent. She has something to do with the Israeli media, “They argue with us, scold us for the little things…we don’t know who we can trust.”
She tried to stay hopeful, telling herself that she would go home before her younger brother Mitzvah. But the day has come. “It bothers me,” she admitted in the interview. She said what got her together was that she believed it would end in some way.
Even though the rumors began to circulate in early 2025, she did not give herself hope. “We hear people talking, but we don’t think it will happen to us,” she said.
On January 24, Liri Elbag was taken away to shoot the release video. “They told her she was shooting the video, but it wasn’t she going home,” Agam said. “I’m waiting for her. I made her birthday card. Then someone told me, ‘Your friend is already at home.'”
The next day, gunfire echoed in the distance. Her kidnapper dressed in a turban and circled her for two hours. “They made me do nothing – not our notebooks, not our drawings, nothing,” she recalled in an interview with Israel Public Radio.
Agam’s absence leaves a huge loophole for the family, but her siblings bring her power. Her twin sister Liyam stayed in the army and even completed officer training while Agam was still missing. Her mother said, “She did it for her sister.”
My sister’s bar plan is not to participate. But after hearing Agam promised her companion hostages, she would return to the base after being released, Bar changed his mind. “Three days after Agam came home, she graduated,” Bergs’ mother recalled. “She wanted her to keep moving forward.”
Now back home, Agam is surrounded by friends, tourists and endless attention. But she is not at peace, not when others are imprisoned.
In this week’s synagogue, Agam makes a loud, public call. “We won’t rest until every soul (live or die) comes home,” she said.
As her mother said, “This is the mission of the Jews. Nothing is more sacred. This is our right to survive – our rebirth as a nation – depends on it.
“God brought Agam home,” her mother said. “Now, it’s our responsibility to bring others back as well.”
Original article source: Finding God in Gaza: Former Israel hostages found faith to help her survive Hamas horror
