Israeli terror victim recounts attack that took his sight, wiped out his family on heels of hostage release

It’s all about perspective.

Oran Almog was just 10 years old when a suicide bomber shattered his life — detonating an explosive in the middle of a Haifa restaurant that instantly killed five members of his Israeli family.

Yet for Almog, now 32, the high price Israel – and terror victims who are forced to watch their tormentors walk free – is paying to retrieve the 48 remaining hostages, 20 believed to still be living, is worth the pain.

“Even through the pain … the bigger picture is what’s important,” Almog told The Post. 

In all, the Oct. 3, 2003, massacre in the midst of the blood-soaked Second Intifada killed 21 people, wounded 60 and left Almog blinded. His father, little brother, two grandparents and cousin were among the dead.

Almog never believed he would have to think about the terror attack mastermind, Sami Jaradat, who was serving 21 life sentences, again. 

“It may have been naive, but I believed he would never see the light of day again,” he thought – until Jaradat was sprung as part of a January cease-fire with Hamas. 

“I felt really painful and something in my heart is broken,” he admitted of Jaradat’s release earlier this year.

“But I also understood the bigger picture,” he said, adding that the deal enabled three innocent Israelis to reclaim their life from captivity.

“Yes, the price is really high. All deals with Hamas are bad deals – any deal with Hamas is a deal with the devil.

Almog knows that too well.

Just days after the 20th anniversary of his own near-death encounter, two members of Almog’s family were brutally murdered and another four were abducted from Kfar Aza near Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023.

Yet, thanks to a short-lived cease-fire deal between Israel and the terror group just one month later – that let out hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, many of whom had blood on their hands – those four relatives were freed.

“I was on the other side of the first deal – I got my family back from captivity – so I know the joy and happiness from coming back from that hell of captivity,” Almog said. “I want the other hostage families to feel this joy.

“These days I don’t think that the question of the price is relevant.”

He tries not to think about Jaradat’s life now, whatever path the convicted terrorist takes.

“It doesn’t matter to me what happens to him. I only hope he doesn’t return to terrorism,” he said, adding that “Israel will do the justice” if he does. 

Almog, who has become a sailing enthusiast, working in several startups and has addressed the UN Security Council, looks at life philosophically.  

“For the hostages who come back, for my close family in a terror attack in Haifa,” he said, “I know it’s possible to live life to the fullest, even a tragic experience.”