Hamas hostages were kidnapped from their homes, threatened with death and thrown onto motorcycles during a music festival. They were taken to secluded areas of Gaza and left there to wait for an unknown person.
Some meticulously wrote down each day, fearful of losing track of time as they lay on hard plastic benches waiting for food rations and hearing the radio announce the death of a loved one.
These are just some of the events shared by hostages released from the Gaza Strip as the story of fifty days of captivity begins to unfold.
On Saturday, 17 hostages, including 13 Israelis and four Thai nationals, were released in exchange for 39 Palestinian prisoners. Among them was an Irish-Israeli girl, Emily Hand, who turned nine while she was held hostage.
She was initially presumed dead and her father, Thomas Hand, expressed relief that she was killed during the Hamas attack on Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7, as it was better than holding her hostage.
Israeli officials later said they had not found her remains and believed she was still alive. She was spotted hugging her dad during an emotional reunion this weekend. Emily’s mother died of cancer when she was two years old.
Mr Hand said the family were “at a loss for words to describe our feelings after 50 difficult and challenging days”.
Hila Rotem Shoshani, a 13-year-old girl who was with Emily at the time of her abduction, was released from captivity in the Gaza Strip on Saturday evening without her mother Rai. According to Jewish media, she said they broke up two days ago.
Emily’s release comes after the release on Friday of 24 hostages, including 13 Israelis, a Filipino and 10 Thai nationals, in exchange for the first 39 Palestinian prisoners released by the Israelis as part of a four-day temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. which started on November 24th.
Ruthie Munder, 78, her daughter Keren Munder, 55, and son Keren Ohad, who was nine years old in captivity, were also among those freed on Friday.
Roni Raviv, Ruti’s 27-year-old niece and Keren’s cousin, said her relatives were determined to record every day they spent in captivity after she was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7.
“They always knew what day it was and what the date was,” she said. Guard. “They knew they had been there for 49 days. They were together all the time.”
Ms. Raviv said her relatives said the amount of food they received varied from day to day. “They told us that on some days there was more food and on others there was less,” she added.
This story was told by a close relative of the Munder family. Jerusalem Post how Ruthie (also called Ruth) learned from a radio report that her son had died in a Hamas attack.
“They had access to radio and television, where they could hear news from Israel,” a family member told the publication. “Ruth heard on the radio that her son [Roee Munder] was killed… Conditions were far from ideal; 80 year old men and women lied [sic] on plastic benches, like hospital ones, without mattresses.”
However, the relative reported that the relatives were treated “humanely” and there were no “unpleasant experiences” during their time in captivity.
“Contrary to our fears, they did not experience the horror stories we imagined,” the family member added.
They explained that the greatest threat came in the early stages of the abduction, when their abductors, in a state of excitement, threatened to harm them. However, when the hostages were on motorcycles, this did not happen.
Ruthie assumed her husband Abraham, 78, had been killed, but he, too, was taken hostage and held elsewhere, her niece said.
Ms Raviv said Abraham has “impaired vision”, walks with a cane and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). “It must be very difficult for him to be in these circumstances,” she said. Guard.
According to her, Ruthie is optimistic and hopes that her husband will soon be released.
Meanwhile, the sister of a Thai hostage released by Hamas on Friday said her brother appeared to be “very well taken care of”.
Rungarun Wichanguen, Wetun Phuma’s brother, told CNN: “His face was very happy and he seemed to be okay. He said he was not tortured or attacked and was well fed.
“He was very well taken care of. It looks like he only lived in the house and not in the tunnel.”
Times of Israel reported that another freed hostage, 21-year-old Maya Regev, was taken to the nearby Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva, Israel, because she required urgent medical attention.
Ms Regev, whose condition was not life-threatening, was abducted from the Supernova music festival in Reims along with her 18-year-old brother Itai, who remains captive.
On Saturday, Wolfson and Schneider hospitals reported that the women and children brought to them after their discharge were in good and stable condition.
Wolfson Hospital received five freed women, and Schneider Hospital received eight freed hostages, including four children and four women. They are also in good condition and under the care of medical and psychosocial teams. Jerusalem Post said.
Previous reports of the hostage taking had the kidnappers marching for miles through a “vast network” of underground tunnels built like a “spider web”.
Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, was released along with Nurit Cooper, 79, just over two weeks after they were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel.
She said she was placed on a motorcycle with her legs on one side and her head on the other, and beaten with sticks, leaving her with bruises.
They stripped her of her watch and jewelry and she was taken “through plowed fields” and through the gates into Gaza, where she walked through wet ground before entering underground tunnels.
She said her captors told her they “believed in the Koran” and therefore would not harm her.
Hamas treated the hostages “gently” and “took care of our needs,” she added. They were allowed to wash, given mattresses, and the seriously wounded man was given medical assistance.
Ms. Lifshitz said a doctor was also present and medications were delivered to the prisoners.
As for food, she explained that they had the same as the kidnappers. “They gave us pita bread, hard cheese, some low-fat cream cheese and pickles, and that was our food for the day,” she said.
Hamas militants were expected to release a third group of hostages on Sunday in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
Under the terms of a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, 50 hostages will be released during a four-day lull in fighting.
Hamas said that as part of the agreement, 150 Palestinian women and teenagers would be released from Israeli prisons.
Source: I News
I am Michael Melvin, an experienced news writer with a passion for uncovering stories and bringing them to the public. I have been working in the news industry for over five years now, and my work has been published on multiple websites. As an author at 24 News Reporters, I cover world section of current events stories that are both informative and captivating to read.