Nira and Yigal Sarusi have welcomed a baby boy nearly three years after Hamas terrorists kidnapped their son Almog from the Nova music festival on Oct. 7 and killed him in captivity 11 months later. The child, named Lavi, was conceived through eggs the couple had frozen a quarter-century ago.
Lavi was born on Yom Kippur, roughly two weeks before the third anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack in which Almog, then 26, was abducted. A civil engineering student, Almog had stayed behind despite his own gunshot wounds to help his injured girlfriend, Shahar, who was later killed. He had planned to propose to her the following year.
“It’s a true miracle,” Yigal Sarusi, 60, told the New York Post. “It’s all from God.”
The Sarusis spent 331 days hoping their son would come home alive. Instead, Hamas executed Almog along with five other hostages, including Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, in a Rafah tunnel in August 2024 — just before Israeli forces closed in to attempt a rescue. The six became known in Israel as “The Beautiful Six.”
While grieving their son, who was the oldest of their four children, the Sarusis recalled the eggs frozen some 25 years earlier during an earlier medical procedure. With their remaining children’s blessing, they pursued surrogacy, keeping the effort private through several failed attempts.
“We didn’t talk about it because we didn’t know if it would succeed,” Yigal said. “But he’s 100% ours.”
Lavi means “lion” in Hebrew. “He’s the future of Israel,” Yigal said. “I want all of Israel to love this kid.”
“We knew this moment would feel good. But it’s even better than we imagined.”
Starting over with a newborn at 58 and 60 has not been simple, but Yigal said Lavi already resembles his late oldest brother. “We’re insisting life goes on,” he said. “It’s pure joy that we have a new son. The heart is getting full.”
Yigal said he hopes his son will grow up embodying the qualities that defined Almog — described as brave, strong and optimistic, a young man who tutored children and shopped for the needy on holidays, and who was rarely seen without his guitar and white Jeep.
“We teach his values — we are all Almog now,” Yigal said. “This is the boy who carries strength and courage. We still have the pain and that pain will never end. It doesn’t erase the pain. Nothing can. We cry, but we have the joy now. It’s the two things together.”
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