Freed hostage Avinatan Or was discharged from Rabin Medical Center on Tuesday, the Petah Tikva hospital announced, eight days after he was released from Hamas captivity.
Dozens of Israelis, many of them young, gathered on the roads leading to the Israeli settlement of Shiloh in the West Bank — where his parents, Ditza and Yaron, live — to welcome the former hostage on his way home.
Or was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists from the Nova festival on October 7, 2023, with his girlfriend, Noa Argamani. Argamani was rescued by Israeli forces in June 2024, and Or was released last Monday under the Gaza ceasefire-hostage release deal.
Or will begin rehabilitation in the hospital’s Returned Hostages Unit. The medical center said it will continue to assist him and his family, giving them all the support they need.
Four other freed hostages — Evyatar David, Guy Gilboa-Dalal, Eitan Mor, and Alon Ohel — remain in the hospital.
Footage of Or’s trip home showed dozens of people, most of them teens, waving Israeli flags and singing songs such as “Am Yisrael Chai” (“The people of Israel live”) at an intersection near Shiloh.
Avinatan Or ???? pic.twitter.com/wtYm3qjihZ
— Sheila Farid???????? (@shilofreid) October 21, 2025
On the way, Or stepped out of the car to celebrate with some of his supporters in the settlement of Leshem, where his brother and other relatives live.
“I want to thank all of you for the support. I heard this week from my whole family how all of the people of Israel helped and supported, and I thank you. Our strength is our togetherness and unity, and I hope we continue like this. No one can defeat us when we are together,” he told the crowd.
Embraced by another crowd in Shiloh, Or told reporters that people have been “flooding us with love” since he and other hostages returned.
Avinathan Or here news: “Very excited, from the second we returned to Israel we were overwhelmed with lots of love” @HGoldich @Yoav__Zehavi pic.twitter.com/Bcl2zgLFCA
— Here news (@kann_news) October 21, 2025
Hamas released 20 living hostages last week. Families of returned hostages have said their loved ones described torture, starvation, and long periods of isolation in captivity.
Or, who was held alone for two years, was handcuffed and put in a cage after an escape attempt, his father said in an interview with Kan public radio last week.
“Avinatan tried to escape from captivity, and then they beat him,” Yaron Or said. “He was handcuffed to the bars. It was a barred place 1.8 meters [six feet] high, and the length of it was the length of the mattress, plus a little. You can call it a cage.”
Under the deal, the bodies of the remaining 28 hostages still held in Gaza who were killed on October 7 or died in captivity were to follow the release of living hostages, but thus far, Hamas has only returned 13 of them. The terror group said it would release two more bodies on Tuesday evening.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
