Oran Almog: Five Members of His Family Were Murdered, He was Blinded, But Soldiers On

Oran Almog is a remarkable man, without an ounce of self-pity, despite what he has lived through. When he was ten years old, a Palestinian terrorist disguised as a woman set off a bomb in the Maxim restaurant in Haifa. His brother, his father, his grandfather, his grandmother, and his cousin were all killed, while Almog was blinded. His sister, his mother, and his aunt were severely wounded. There are many such horror stories about Israelis — thousands of them — who have been killed by Palestinian murderers who want all the Jews of Israel, and of elsewhere too, to die. Now Almog has learned that one of the hostages that Israel has released is Sami Jaradat, the man who murdered five of his relatives.

If anyone has a right to object to this innocents-for-criminals deal, it is Oran Almog. He recognizes that the swap, of 57 Palestinian criminals for each Israeli hostage, is a bad deal, but despite that, he thinks it is a deal that had to be made, for there was no other way, in his view, to get the hostages home alive. He knows the risk: some of those 1,900 prisoners being freed will return to terrorism, and Israelis will die as a result. 82% of the 1,027 prisoners, including many terrorists, who were traded for a single Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, in 2011, went right back to terrorism. Why wouldn’t that be repeated with this swap? Almog is not willing to accept the certain death of the 70-odd Israelis still in the hands of Hamas; he believes it is a moral imperative for Israel to get back its hostages, who would otherwise die in captivity, whatever the cost, and he hopes for the best with the prisoners it has been forced to release. He knows that the worst of the worst among the released prisoners, those who are to be kept from returning either to Gaza, or to Judea and Samaria, will be sent far away, most likely to the Hamas-favoring snake pits of Qatar and Iran.

More on Oran Almog can be found here: “‘A Bad but Necessary Deal’: Five Members of His Family Were Murdered — Today, Their Killer Walks Free,” by Debbie Weiss, Algemeiner, January 30, 2025:

While the release of three Israeli hostages on Thursday brought relief and elation across Israel, it also triggered a wave of mixed emotions, especially among victims who saw the terrorists responsible for their suffering set free. One of them is Oran Almog, who was just ten years old when a Palestinian terrorist disguised as a pregnant woman blew up the restaurant he was in, killing five members of his family and leaving him blind.

Yet, while Thursday’s release of Sami Jaradat — the mastermind behind the October 2003 massacre of Almog’s family — was a deeply personal blow, the return of hostages remained a necessary step, he said.

“That the terrorist who killed my family will find himself free is deeply painful, heartbreaking even,” he told The Algemeiner. “But at the same time, I know that even today — especially today — I must set aside my personal pain and focus on the significance of this deal. And the significance is clear. We are getting our hostages home, and that is the only thing that matters.”

It’s hard for an outsider even to allow himself to have an opinion in such a painful case. We know that the hostages-for-criminals swap is a very bad deal. But are we so certain that a better deal could have been achieved? Who is at fault, in the end, for accepting such terms? Is it Netanyahu, or the hundreds of thousands of Israelis, including the relatives of hostages, who pressured him with massive demonstrations to make whatever deal, no matter how lopsided and onerous, he could? Or was it Donald Trump, who wanted a “deal” whatever the cost, to be completed just as he became president, and may have persuaded Netanyahu, through his envoy Steve Witkoff, to accept the swap, perhaps by presenting as a sweetener the delivery of the 30,000-pound bunker buster bombs in the American arsenal, or the promise of collaborating with Israel on attacking Iran’s nuclear program?

Oran Almog is just one of the many thousands of Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorists. Think of all he has endured, and even so, he is willing to have the terrorist responsible for killing five members of his family freed, in order to save the lives of Israeli hostages. His brother, father, grandfather, grandmother, and cousin were all killed in that attack on the Maxim restaurant. His mother, his sister, and his aunt were severely wounded in the same attack. He was blinded for life. Then, on October 7, 2023, two more of his relatives were murdered and four others kidnapped.

Despite all this, despite the pain he must feel at the thought that Sami Jaradat will be free, Almog is willing to have the terrorist responsible for killing five members of his family and severely wounding three others released from prison.. He approves of the swap, even with its terrible terms, hoping that all the hostages who are still alive come back, and that the freed terrorists’ murderous plans can be thwarted. I haven’t the right to disagree with a quiet hero like Oran Almog. I fear he’s wrong. I hope he’s right.