The emotional reunion between Argentine hostage Iair Horn and his mother after being released

The video lasts just a few seconds, but it deeply moves. Ruti, the mother of Iair Horn, reunites with her son, the Argentine who was kidnapped by the Hamas terrorist group for 500 days and finally regained his freedom this morning.

At that moment, she asks him to hug his brother Amos first. The two merge into a single embrace. "I want to see that," she repeats in perfect Spanish, while watching the reunion of Iair and Amos, now safe in Israel, far from the ordeal experienced in Gaza.

Then it's her turn, and the emotion overflows the scene. "Helloooo... Helloooo..." she exclaims through tears as she kisses him, caresses him, feels him close again. Immediately, the three join in a hug and none can hold back the tears.

"Iair has returned home in the arms of his family, but his brother Eitan has disappeared and remains held by Hamas in Gaza. We won't stop operating until they finally reunite," states the message from the Israel Defense Forces account, which shared the moving images now traveling the world and multiplying on social media.

In the room of the Ichilov Hospital, the color red predominated because it is the color of Hapoel Be’er Sheva FC, the team Iair supports in Israel, which sent him a special jersey to welcome him after 498 days of nightmare.

A fan of Atlanta in Argentina, (since his kidnapping, a video from years ago where he talked about his love for El Bohemio went viral), in Israel he follows Hapoel Be’er Sheva FC, a team he can now watch for free forever.

In a gesture full of emotion, Hapoel Be'er Sheva FC granted lifetime tickets to Iair and his brother Eitan, who remains kidnapped in Gaza as a hostage. "We hope they can attend these matches together soon," they announced.

Soon after, Iair sheds the clothing the terrorists forced him to wear upon release and dresses in the deep red colors of his team. His mother, who also wears the same color, doesn't stop hugging him. She rests her head on him, and the image is once again captured by the cameras.

"For me, it's extremely difficult, I can't comprehend how I wake up in the morning and know nothing about my children. I don't understand why my grandchildren have to go through this, which is the worst that can happen, and for Amos it's extremely difficult, I raised them so close and united, but luckily Amos joined my optimism," Ruti said months ago, while dreaming of this reunion.

Raised in Argentina

Iair Horn left Argentina during the 2000 crisis, when he was 22 years old. He was educated at the Scholem Aleijem school in Villa Crespo, where in his youth he coordinated a group within Nofesh, a Jewish youth organization that still meets at that institution today.

Today, at 46 years old, Iair becomes the first Argentine released as part of the recent truce between Israel and Hamas, along with two other hostages: the Russian-Israeli Alexander Sasha Trufanov and the American-Israeli Sagui Dekel-Chen.

Although the terrorist organization released Iair, his brother Eitan remains in captivity, despite both being kidnapped together in the Nir Oz kibbutz and then taken to Gaza.

Amos and Eitan resided in Kfar Saba, a city located north of Tel Aviv. "The only one living in a kibbutz was Iair, whom Eitan went to visit that day (October 7) in Nir Oz, and they were kidnapped. That's what happened to many people who went to visit their family at the kibbutz and were taken," recounted Itzik Horn, their father.