“Shadows of children”: the difficult reconstruction of children held hostage by Hamas

After seven weeks of captivity in Gaza’s tunnels, they are finally free to talk, laugh and play. However, some of the children who returned from captivity are still reluctant to raise their voices above a whisper.

In theory, they can eat whatever they want, sleep as much as they want, and forget their fears. In practice, however, it was sometimes necessary to convince some people that they no longer had to ration their food or remain silent.

86 Israelis freed during a short-lived truce between their government and Hamas have returned home.

The October 7 attack by Palestinian Hamas fighters on around twenty towns and villages left many children without a fixed home to return to. Some of their parents are dead and others are still being held hostage, which portends difficult days ahead.

Step by step, these children, the mothers and grandmothers who were held by their side, as well as their extended families, are groping on the path to healing. No one, including the doctors and psychologists who treat them, knows exactly how to help them or how long it will take.

The people who greeted the youngest hostages as they descended from the helicopters understood immediately that their captivity had been brutal.

“They looked like children’s shadows” says Dr. Efrat Bron-Harlev of the Schneider Children’s Medical Center on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, who has helped treat more than a dozen former captives, most of whom were small children.

Some were not allowed to wash for the duration of their captivity. Many had lost up to 15% of their total weight, but were reluctant to eat the food they were served.

When asked why, they replied in whispers: “‘Because we have to save it for later’“.

A 13-year-old girl said she spent her entire captivity believing her family had abandoned hera message reinforced by his captors, according to Efrat Bron-Harlev.

“They told me that no one cared about me anymore. Nobody was looking for me. Nobody wanted me to come back. We could hear bombs all around. They told me: “All they want to do is kill you and us together“”, the young girl tells her doctors.

After having such an experience, “I think it never leaves you“, explains doctor Yael Mozer-Glassberg, who treated 19 of the released children. “It’s now part of your life story“.

In the days following the release of the hostages, almost all of them left hospitals and returned to their families.

Medical staff responsible for treating the former hostages spent weeks preparing for their return. But providing care to so many victims who suffered such extreme conditions has proven very difficult for doctors.largely due to the reluctance of many children to speak.

“Most of them say they have to be very calm. All the time. Don’t get up. Do not speak. Of course, don’t cry. Don’t laugh. You have to be very, very calm“, adds Efrat Bron-Harlev.

“What these children went through is simply unimaginable“.

Signs of improvement

Despite this, some of them sometimes seem to flourish.

Noam Avigdori, 12, who was released with his mother, was able to easily reconnect with his father and, over the past week, met friends and even ventured into a store.

ADVERTISEMENT

“When I tell him “Noam, do this, go do that“she answers me “Dad, you know what happened to me“. She takes more responsibility and… she appreciates“, says his father, Hen Avigdori, in an interview.

But there are also nights when his daughter wakes up screaming, he adds.

Overall, the freed hostages have spoken little publicly about the conditions of their captivity. Their families claim that authorities asked them not to disclose details of their individual treatment, for fear of further endangering those still detained.

A very different experience of captivity

Interviews with their families, doctors and mental health professionals, and statements released by authorities and others make it clear that while all the hostages suffered, their experience of captivity was very different.

Some were isolated from other hostages. Others, like Noam Avigdori and his mother, Sharon, were detained with family members, allowing the 12-year-old to play the role of an older sibling. e) for the young cousins ​​who were detained with her.

ADVERTISEMENT

“Everyone who was with a family member or friends was in much better condition” when they were released, says Dani Lotan, a clinical psychologist at Scheider who treated some of the former hostages.

This varies, however, even within the same family.

During the weeks they were imprisoned, Danielle Aloni and her 5-year-old daughter, Emilia, formed a close friendship with Nutthawaree Munkan, one of the imprisoned Thai farm workers. Last week, after their release, the girl sang for Nutthawaree, during a video call, reciting the numbers she had learned in Thai during her captivity.

But Emilia’s cousins, 3-year-old twins, have been going through difficult times since their return.

In captivity, Sharon Aloni was held with her husband and one of their twin daughters in a small room, along with about eight other people. The couple passed “ten days of anguish” to believe that their other daughter had been killed, after she was kidnapped shortly after they were taken to Gaza.

ADVERTISEMENT

This lasted until one day Sharon told her husband that she could hear the screams of their missing daughter, Emma. A few minutes later, a woman appeared without explanation to bring them the child. Following this reunion, the mother and daughters were able to stay together until the end of their captivity – but a few days before their release, the girls’ father was taken away and is still missing.

Now free, the girls wake up crying in the middle of the night, says Moran Aloni. Emma doesn’t let anyone leave her. They have gotten used to speaking out loud, but their mother still whispers.

Many former hostages described receiving meager amounts of foodeven though rations seemed to vary from one group to another without explanation.

One family told doctors they were given a biscuit with tea at 10 a.m. every morning and, occasionally, a single dried date. At 5 p.m., they were served rice.

A 15-year-old girl said she didn’t eat for days so she could give her 8-year-old sister her share of food.

ADVERTISEMENT

Some of the 23 Thai hostages freed recently told caregivers that they were each given about half a liter of water – sometimes salt water – and had to keep it going for three days.

A group of former captives said they were only allowed to bathe three times in seven weeks with buckets of cold water – but, according to doctors, one of the child hostages did not wash once during his captivity.

Adults are not spared

According to doctors, the recovery process after such prolonged trauma will be slow and fragmentary. While adults are better able to process what they have experienced than children, their recovery poses its own challenges..

Many of them, especially the older and more infirm, remain weak after losing significant amounts of weight due to the meager rations provided by their captors. When they speak, their families hear notes of resilience, but also of fragility.

Yaffa Adar, 85, a Holocaust survivor who was taken from her kibbutz and taken to Gaza on a golf cart, speaks openly with her family about her time in captivity. The days that followed were more difficult, as she realized what happened to her and the community she loved, says her granddaughter Adva Adar.

ADVERTISEMENT

“She’s incredibly mentally strong, but you can see how hell has reached her soul“, she adds. “It shows in the way she sees the world, the way she looks at people“.

In hospitals, doctors, social workers and psychologists are careful about how they speak to former hostages, to avoid amplifying their trauma.

During the seven weeks of her detention, Shoshan Haran, her daughters and her grandchildren wondered what had happened to her husband.

“We had to tell them my father had been murdered“, explains Yuval Haran.

In the weeks and months to come, the hostages and their families will have to relearn how to live without those who were killed or who are still missing. But for most of them, it’s still way too early…

ADVERTISEMENT