Hostages in the Gaza Strip: “Some days they had nothing to eat”… Relatives talk about the conditions of captivity

After seven weeks of captivity, nearly forty Hamas hostages have returned to Israel. Although information about their captivity was carefully monitored, some details began to emerge, especially in the Israeli press. Thus, the families provided some information about the conditions in which some of their loved ones lived during those long weeks of waiting and suffering.

Merav Raviv, whose cousin Keren Munder, 9-year-old son Ohad and mother Ruth were freed by Hamas, said there was sometimes not enough food. “They were not tortured or ill-treated, but on some days they had nothing to eat, and sometimes they had to wait one and a half to two hours between the time they were asked to go to the toilet and the time they were asked to go to the toilet. … let them,” she told Israeli news site Ynet. Her cousin and aunt lost about 7 kilograms each, she added. His family members also slept not on beds, but on rows of chairs placed close together in the room, the Times of Israel reported.

Only one meal during the day

In addition, Merav Raviv also explained that the guards who detained his family were armed and had their faces uncovered and not hooded. His relatives would suffer from constant threats. “It was scary, they kept doing this to them,” she told the Israeli press, pressing her thumb to her neck as she pretended to slit her throat. Released before the truce on humanitarian grounds, 85-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz also spoke about the “hell” of her captivity.

She said she was beaten several times and then held in tunnels running underneath the Gaza Strip “like a spider’s web.” She described her jailers as “polite” and providing everything, “even shampoo.” They “made sure we were clean, that we ate. We ate the same thing they ate,” she said, namely pita bread, cheese and cucumbers: “That was the only meal of the day. »

“She’s no longer used to daylight”

Other hostages appear to have been held in similar conditions underground. Eyal Nuri, the nephew of 72-year-old Adina Moshe, who was released on Friday, said his aunt “had to adapt to the sunlight” because she had been in the dark for weeks. “She walked with her eyes downcast because she was in a tunnel. She was no longer used to daylight. And during captivity she was disconnected from the entire outside world. »

Another testimony comes from Yair Rotema, whose 12-year-old niece was released on Sunday. When she returned, her family said they had to remind her that she didn’t need to whisper. Those inmates “always told her to whisper and be quiet, so I continue to tell her now that she can raise her voice,” her uncle said.

Although most of the freed hostages were able to walk and talk normally, doctors warned of the dire psychological effects that these weeks of captivity could cause. At the same time, the 84-year-old Israeli hostage released on Sunday was hospitalized in intensive care. “She is being treated in our emergency department due to serious neglect during her detention in recent weeks at the hands of Hamas,” Shlomi Kodish, director of Soroka Hospital in Beersheba, told reporters in southern Israel.

The remaining hostages are due to be released this Monday, according to an agreement reached between Israel and Hamas.