This isn’t a happy birthday.

Hostage Naama Levy turned 20 in captivity on Saturday. She has been held hostage by Hamas terrorists in Gaza for more than 8 months.

Naama’s mother, Dr. Ayelet Levy Shachar, wrote a passionate letter to her daughter expressing the family’s pain and resolve to have her returned home.

“This is a letter no mother should ever have to write to her daughter. Today is your 20th birthday. You should be celebrating this occasion surrounded by friends and family.
Instead, you are enduring your 260th day as a hostage in Gaza surrounded by terrorists.”

“My Naamonet, I speak to you in my heart every day. Do you hear me? When I close my eyes, I see you in front of me smiling. Do you see me?
Every day I sit with my thoughts and am overcome by unspeakable anguish and pain.

I ask myself, how did we reach this point? And today that pain is even sharper,” she added.

“Naama, on your birthday, my deepest wish is that the pain of these past months becomes just one chapter in a much bigger story – a story filled with so many bright moments that they outshine this period of darkness. My wish is for your freedom to arrive as soon as possible so that your healing can begin,” she concluded.