Brother of teen hostage released by Hamas overwhelmed with gratitude

EVANSTON, Ill. (NewsNation) — Ben Raanan, who waited 13 days to hear that his mother and sister were safe, finally got the news of his lifetime.

“And suddenly, all that emotion just pours out,” Ben Raanan said during an interview with “Elizabeth Vargas Reports.”

Judith Tai Raanan and her 17-year-old daughter Natalie Raanan of Evanston, Illinois, were released Friday after they were taken hostage by Hamas during the Oct. 7 incursion into Israel.

“For the past 13 days, we’ve just focused on getting them back and we had this kind of tightness in our stomach of like, don’t let any emotion in like we have to stay strong,” said Ben Raanan.

A Hamas spokesperson said Friday it released the two because of “humanitarian reasons” in an agreement with the Qatari government.

They were in the kibbutz of Nahal Oz, near Gaza, when Hamas and other militants stormed into southern Israeli towns.

Ben said processing his emotions is difficult but he’s certainly grateful.

“I just feel everything,” he said. “Fear, but happiness and joy. But fear that they’re not okay. But then I see a picture and they look okay. It’s absurd. My sister has been captured for almost two weeks now and still looks like a supermodel. And I’m losing the hair on my head,” he joked.

Uri Raanan of Illinois told NewsNation that he spoke to his daughter Friday by telephone. “She’s doing good. She’s doing very good,” said Uri Raanan, who lives in the Chicago suburbs. “I’m in tears, and I feel very, very good.”

The 71-year-old said he saw on the news earlier Friday that an American mother and daughter would be released by Hamas, and he spent the day hoping that meant his daughter and her mother, Judith Raanan.

Relatives of other captives welcomed the release and appealed for the others to be freed.

“We call on world leaders and the international community to exert their full power in order to act for the release of all the hostages and missing,’’ they said in a statement.

Ben is keeping those families close to his heart as well.

“I have this kind of overwhelming gratitude to people who have supported our family. But also, all those families that didn’t get the news that we got today.”

As to the first thing he plans on saying to his stepmother and sister?

“I don’t think there’s going to be words,” he said through tears. “I think I’m just going to hug them and just not let them go. I don’t think there are words to describe the emotions that we’re going to be feeling.”