Israeli women and children returning from captivity in Gaza have described being beaten and threatened, moved from place to place and forced to whisper for weeks without doing anything, their families say.
Most of the captives freed during a six-day truce were rushed to hospitals in a country still reeling from their abduction during the Hamas attack on southern Israel on July 7. October, during which Israel says 1,200 people were killed.
Since the latest round of releases began on Friday, with Israel freeing some imprisoned Palestinians in exchange, the freed captives have been kept away from the media.
Their stories came through the filter of their family members, without independent verification, providing insight into their ordeal. Most of the 240 captives that Israel says were captured on October 7 remain in captivity.
Deborah Cohen told French broadcaster BFM TV that she was told that her 12-year-old nephew, Eitan Yahalomi, and others were beaten by Palestinian residents when they arrived in Gaza during the Hamas attack. She said her captors made her watch footage of Hamas violence.
“Every time a child cried there, they threatened him with a gun to keep him quiet. Once we got to Gaza, all the civilians, everyone was hitting them… We are talking about a 12-year-old child,” she said.
Hamas, the Palestinian armed group that governs Gaza, claims to have treated the captives in accordance with Islamic teachings in order to preserve their lives and well-being.
It says some captives were killed by Israeli air raids during a military offensive launched in response to the October 7 attacks. More than 15,000 people were killed in Israeli air and ground attacks, including more than 6,000 children, according to Palestinian officials in Gaza.
Speak quietly
Some details are slowly emerging from the medical professionals treating them and relatives of the freed captives.
Ronit Zaidenstein, head of the medical team at Shamir Medical Center where 17 freed Thai nationals were treated, said they had been fed “very low-nutrition food” in captivity.
“People who have come to us have lost a significant amount of their weight in such a short time – 10 percent or more.”
In an interview that has since been taken offline, Margarita Mashavi, a doctor at Wolfson Medical Center — one of the main facilities caring for released captives — said her interlocutors described being kept underground on several floors.
“They didn’t give them any light. They only gave them two hours,” she was quoted as saying by the Ynet news site on Monday.
The families of the two girls held together had difficulty hearing their children when they returned home because they only spoke in whispers.
“I had to bring my ear closer to his mouth to hear. In captivity, he was told not to make noise. You can see the terror in her eyes,” Thomas Hand, the father of nine-year-old Emily Hand, told CNN.
Yair Rotem said his niece Hila Rotem Shoshani, 13, was detained with Emily Hand and was now speaking in a whisper. She spoke of hugging her mother Raaya, still in Gaza, who cried when the girls were taken from her before their return to Israel.
Merav Mor Raviv said the kidnappers of his cousin Keren Munder, his nine-year-old son Ohad, and his mother Ruth, spoke Hebrew and, at times, put a finger to their throats as if to warn them of death if they did not do what was asked of them. .
She told Israel’s Channel 12 that they had been moved from place to place, both underground and above ground. They lost weight because food was sometimes scarce and ate mainly rice and bread.
Thoughts of reunion
Adva Adar said her grandmother Yaffa Adar, 85, showed tenacity by constantly planning to reunite with her family.
“She said she thought a lot about family and that helped her survive and that she could hear the voices of her great-grandchildren calling to her and that gave her a lot of power,” he said. the granddaughter told Reuters.
An Israeli mother, Daniel Aloni, wrote to thank the Hamas-armed Qassam Brigades before her release with her daughter Emilia. Their story went viral in Arab media.
Daniel wrote to them to thank them for giving Emilia candy and fruit and for treating his daughter like a queen.
“I will be forever grateful that she doesn’t leave here with any trauma,” she wrote. “If only in this world we could truly be good friends.”