Nira and Yigal Sarusi, the parents of Israeli hostage Almog Sarusi, who was killed in Hamas captivity, have welcomed a baby boy conceived using eggs the couple froze 25 years ago.
The child, named Lavi, was born on Yom Kippur, about two weeks before the third anniversary of the October 7 attack in which Hamas gunmen abducted Almog, then 26, from the Nova music festival. Almog, a civil engineering student, had been shot but stayed behind to help his injured girlfriend, Shahar, who was later killed. He had planned to propose to her the following year.
Almog was held hostage for 331 days before Hamas executed him along with five other captives, including Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, in a tunnel in Rafah in August 2024. The six became known in Israel as “The Beautiful Six.” The killings took place just before Israeli forces closed in on a rescue attempt.
After Almog’s death, Nira and Yigal Sarusi, with the support of their remaining children, decided to pursue surrogacy using eggs frozen a quarter-century earlier. They kept the process private through several unsuccessful rounds before Lavi’s birth.
“We didn’t talk about it because we didn’t know if it would succeed,” Yigal told The Post. “But he’s 100% ours.”
Yigal, 60, called the birth “a true miracle,” saying it showed that even as life was cruelly taken, new life can emerge.
“It’s all from God,” Yigal said.
The name Lavi means “lion” in Hebrew. Yigal said he hopes the child will come to represent something larger than his own family.
“He’s the future of Israel,” Yigal said. “I want all of Israel to love this kid.”
Starting over with a newborn at 58 and 60 has not been easy, the couple said, but they described the experience as priceless.
“We knew this moment would feel good. But it’s even better than we imagined,” Yigal said, adding that Lavi resembles his oldest brother, Almog.
Yigal said he hopes Lavi will grow up embodying the qualities of Almog, whom he described as “brave, strong, optimistic,” a young man who tutored children and shopped for the needy during holidays, and who was rarely seen without his guitar and his white Jeep.
“We teach his values – we are all Almog now,” Yigal said.
He said the family continues to carry grief alongside the new joy in their home.
“We still have the pain and that pain will never end. It doesn’t erase the pain. Nothing can,” Yigal said. “We cry, but we have the joy now. It’s the two things together.”
