In “suffocating” rooms, with little or no food and with some children being forced to watch videos of the October 7 massacre.
These were the conditions in which those kidnapped by Hamas remained, according to the stories that the first freed people and their relatives have offered to the media.
The stories paint a picture loaded with misery, uncertainty and fear.
One of the hostages, Ruti Munder, 78, said she learned that her son had been killed by listening to a radio his captors were using.
For her part, Deborah Cohen stated that her 12-year-old nephew was forced to watch videos of the attack that occurred in southern Israel.
More of 60 of the approximately 240 people kidnapped by Hamas have been released under the agreement mediated by the United States and Qatar.
Few have spoken about their experiences, but those who have, either themselves or through their families, have made it clear that captivity has left them with a series of physical and emotional scars.
“They are monsters”
In an interview with French television channel BFM, Cohen described the conditions his 12-year-old nephew Eitan Yahalomi endured during his 52-day captivity.
“When he arrived in Gaza they beat him. He is a 12-year-old boy,” he said, adding that Any child who cried was “threatened with rifles”.
Cohen said Eitan told him that “Hamas forced him to watch terrifying videos” of the Oct. 7 attacks, in which its militants killed around 1,200 people in southern Israel.
“(When Eitan was released) we were very happy,” the little boy’s aunt told the French television station.
However, She admitted that she is now worried about the consequences that these events will have on her nephew.
“It is unimaginable. I don’t know who could do something like that,” she stated.
“I wanted to believe that Eitan would be treated well. Apparently not. Those people are monsters“, he stated.
The Times of Israel reported that the boy’s father, Ohad, was shot and wounded in a shootout and is still being held captive in Gaza.
In inhumane conditions
Other hostages have told relatives that their captors kept them in crowded underground hallways and rooms with little electricity.
In addition, They have assured that they were strictly controlled by their custodians, who denied them pens, to prevent them from trying to communicate with each other.
Ruti Munder, 78, was released on November 24 along with her daughter Keren, 54, and her grandson Ohad Munder-Zichri, nine years old.
The woman said her captors forced the group she was in to sleep on benches without mattresses, in a “suffocating” room with little fresh air.
However, she was lucky enough to be given a sheet; many others, including boys and girls, received nothing to protect themselves from the cold.
“We covered ourselves with a sheet. The children slept under the benches, on the floor, because we wanted them with us“He told Israel’s Channel 13.
Hamas divided families, leaving many unaware of what had happened to their relatives on October 7.
In a video released by Munder’s family, a relative is heard informing her that her husband Avraham, also 78, is still captive.
“So he wasn’t killed.”responds the woman in the recording.
Munder then describes how he learned, from listening to the radio, that his son, Roy, had been killed in the attack on the Nir Oz kibbutz.
The 78-year-old said she initially ate chicken and rice, plus tea twice a day.
“We were fine,” he said, but indicated that the rations they were given changed soon, when “the economic situation worsened and from then on people began to go hungry“.
Another relative, Merav Raviv, said Munder and her daughter lost about 7 kilos each.
Others have spoken of a meager and dwindling diet of canned hummus, pita bread, and salty cheese.
Some freed people said that at the end of their captivity they only received two slices of bread a day.
Deep aftermath
Those caring for the released children say many suffer the effects of psychological strain.
A resident of Kibbutz Be’eri asserted that two liberated girls still speak almost whisperingbecause for weeks their captors forced them to keep their voices down.
Thomas Hand, father of nine-year-old Irish-Israeli girl Emily Hand, who was freed Sunday, said his daughter cries herself to sleep at night.
“She is slowly recoveringlittle by little,” the man told the American media.
“The most shocking and disturbing part of our reunion was that he was only whispering. He couldn’t hear her. I had to put my ear to his lips,” she said.
“I had been conditioned not to make any noise,” she added.
Elma Avraham, 84, was freed on Sunday and immediately flown by helicopter to a Beersheba hospital in “serious and life-threatening” condition.
Her daughter Tali Amano said Hamas kept her in terrible conditions, even though she suffers from several serious medical conditions.
“My mother arrived hours after we lost her”he assured, while reporting that the kidnappers denied the woman her medications for about 50 days.
For his part, Hagai Levine, head of medical affairs at the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, said Avraham was held “for 52 days in conditions in which no human being should be detained, without human dignity“.
Yocheved Lifschitz, an 85-year-old woman who was released on October 23, said she had been through hell.
The grandmother and peace activist was kidnapped by Hamas members on motorcycles and beaten with clubs, before being led through a “spider web” of tunnels under Gaza.
However, Lifschirz also assured that the hostages were “well treated” and kept in clean conditions and given mattresses to sleep on the floor.
“They made sure we didn’t get sick and we had a doctor with us every two or three days,” he said at the time.
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