After being held captive by Hamas for 482 days, Agam Berger has returned home. She was first seen in disturbing footage after being abducted with four other young female soldiers from the Nahal Oz IDF base. The terrorists displayed them in Gaza as trophies.
At a recent ceremony at the Yehezkel Synagogue in Tel Aviv, Berger made an emotional plea to God for the 59 hostages still in Gaza.
“The living and the dead,” she said in the Synagogue, “We will not rest until they all return.”
Her mother, Merav Berger, told Digital, “I began to feel God shaking my world.” She started observing the Sabbath in honor of her daughter – before she knew if her daughter was alive. “We were traditional, but not religious. Agam didn’t keep Shabbat before. But somehow, she found God – in Gaza.”
She said her daughter’s faith and identity sustained her. “They took her body,” she told Israeli media, “but they couldn’t take her soul and identity.”
She and fellow hostage Liri Albag were given a radio early in their captivity. She told Israel public radio station, “We heard voices—Israelis saying that we were worth fighting for. That gave us strength. But after the first hostage rescue, they took the radio. They were more paranoid.”
In January 2024, Hamas guards brought them items from an abandoned Israeli military outpost: maps, a newspaper, and a Jewish prayer book.
Agam’s mother later said her daughter had dreamed of a siddur – a Jewish prayer book – just days before. “Then it arrived,” Merav said. “How do you explain that? That’s not chance. That’s faith.”
With that book, she began observing Jewish time. “We had a watch at first,” she told Israeli public radio. “That’s how we knew when it was Shabbat, when it was Yom Kippur. I fasted. On Passover, I refused bread. I asked for corn flour—and they brought it. They respected my religion.”
As the months passed, the conditions worsened. She said that many were cruel and others indifferent. She told the Israeli media that, “They argued with us, scolded us over small things… we didn’t know who we could trust.”
She tried to remain hopeful, believing she’d be home before her younger brother’s bar mitzvah. But that day passed. “That broke me,” she said in interviews. She said her belief that it would end kept her going.
Even when rumors of a hostage deal began to circulate in early 2025, she didn’t allow herself to hope. “We heard people talking, but we didn’t think it would happen for us,” she said.
On Jan. 24, Liri Elbag was taken to film a release video. “They told her she was filming a video – but not that she was going home,” Agam said. “I waited for her. I had made her birthday cards. Then someone told me, ‘Your friends are already home.’”
The next day, gunfire echoed. Her captors dressed her in a hijab and drove her around for two hours. “They didn’t let me take anything – not our notebooks, not the drawings, nothing,” she recalled in an interview with Israeli public radio.
Agam’s absence deeply affected her family, but her siblings were strong. Her twin sister Liyam remained in the army, completing officer training while Agam was missing. “She did it for her sister,” her mother said.
Bar, the younger sister, had not planned to enlist. But after hearing that Agam had promised her fellow hostages she’d return to her base, Bar changed her mind. “Three days after Agam came home, she graduated from her unit,” the Bergers’ mother said. “She wanted her to carry it forward.”
Now home, Agam is surrounded by friends, visitors, and attention. But she’s not at peace.
In the synagogue this week, Agam made that call publicly. “We won’t rest,” she said, “until every soul – living or dead – comes home.”
As her mother said: “This is the Jewish mission. There’s nothing more sacred. It’s our right to exist – and our rebirth as a people – depends on it.
“God brought Agam home,” her mother said. “Now we have a duty to bring the others back too.”