Eight Months Pregnant, Israeli Mother Desperate for Sign of Life From Husband, Held Hostage by Hamas in Gaza

When Michal Lobanov wakes up each morning, she feels as if she is repeating the horrifying morning of October 7 all over again. The 28-year-old Ms. Lobanov, who is in advanced stages of pregnancy with her second child, hasn’t seen or heard from her husband, Alex, 32, since he was taken hostage by Hamas terrorists nearly three months ago. Alex Lobanov is among the 129 hostages abducted by Hamas who are unaccounted for in the Gaza Strip. He was working as the bar manager at the Nova music festival at Kibbutz Reim, where Hamas terrorists slaughtered 360 people and kidnapped 40 more in a brutal and bloody onslaught. More than 1,200 Israelis were murdered by Hamas terrorists across southern Israel in a single day.Mr. Lobanov’s last conversation with his wife took place at 9 a.m. on that deadly Saturday. In an interview with The New York Sun this week, Michal Lobanov said that her husband’s last words to her were that he was fleeing from gunshots and was hiding. “Everything is good, don’t worry. I will talk with you,” he said. Since that moment, Ms. Lobanov has not stopped worrying. She hasn’t received a shred of information about her husband’s condition and related that none of the released hostages had reported seeing her husband during their captivity. She also hasn’t seen any videos or photos of her husband in Hamas propaganda on social media, as some of the other hostage families have seen of their loved ones. “I’m very anxious, precisely because we haven’t received any sign that he is alive. I’m very worried for him,” she said. “The only piece of information we have is what the IDF told us — that Alex was kidnapped alive by Hamas and taken to Gaza.” Their 2-year-old son misses his father terribly. “Our son is always looking for his father, screaming, ‘Daddy.’ He doesn’t understand what happened to him,” Ms. Lobanov said. Alex Lobanov, a dual Russian-Israeli citizen who made aliyah to Israel with his family from eastern Russia when he was 8, was initially classified as missing for nearly three weeks before his family was told he had been abducted by Hamas. Alex’s mother, Oxana, was recently interviewed on the Knesset channel, where she explained in Russian how deeply worried she and her husband, who are both handicapped, are for their son. “He has an open heart, he is good and always says yes. He loves people. We cannot sleep, we’re unable to eat, we just keep thinking about him,” Oxana Lobanov said.In November, Oxana Lobanov penned a letter to President Putin asking him to help bring about the release of her kidnapped son. Earlier this week, Prime Minister Netanyahu told the Knesset that he had approached Mr. Putin, after not speaking to him for many months. “I asked him to intervene in the matter of the hostages, including Audrey Kozlov, Alex Lobanov, and Alexander Trupanob,” Mr. Netanyahu said in reference to the three kidnapped Israelis, who all hold Russian citizenship. Mr. Netanyahu said that Mr. Putin had responded by saying that he would try to act in this regard. Mr. Putin recently appointed Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Mikhail Bogdanov, to help broker a deal to free the Israeli hostages. “I think that Russia has the power to release the hostages,” Michal Lobanov told the Sun. A close family friend of the Lobanovs also traveled to America recently as part of a delegation that raised awareness of the Israeli men being held captive in Gaza. “There has been a lot of media attention given to the women and children who were kidnapped, but not much has been said about the fathers, grandfathers, brothers, and sons who were brutally kidnapped and are still in Gaza,” Ms. Lobanov said. “I wake up every morning to the reality that Hamas has taken Alex away from me. The pain that I felt on October 7 after finding out what happened to my husband gets worse each day that Alex hasn’t returned. I’m in my eighth month of pregnancy and praying that he will be returned home to his family,” she told the Sun.

Eight Months Pregnant, Israeli Mother Desperate for Sign of Life From Husband, Held Hostage by Hamas in Gaza

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