Nili Margalit

Nili Margalit was born in 1983

Nili Margalit was born in 1983. She grew up connected to Kibbutz Nir Oz, where she later lived. Her father was Eliyahu, known as Churchill.

She completed a bachelor's degree in nursing at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in 2011, with honors. She later earned a master's degree in health systems management.

She first worked in the pediatric surgery ward at Ichilov in Tel Aviv. She then returned to Nir Oz and became a nurse in the pediatric emergency department at Soroka hospital in Beersheba. She also works as a clinical instructor and lecturer at Ben-Gurion University.

On October 7, 2023, she was kidnapped from her home in Nir Oz, and her father was killed. In Hamas tunnels she told her captors she was a nurse, kept records of medicines and treated hostages, many of them elderly. She was released after 55 days, on November 30, 2023, in a hostage deal.

After her release she campaigned for the return of the hostages and for medicine to reach them. At the World Economic Forum in Davos she met Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla and UN Secretary-General António Guterres. In 2024 she received recognition from President Isaac Herzog and from Ben-Gurion University.