Oldsters of freed Hamas hostages give main points of ordeal

Oldsters of 4 younger feminine Israeli hostages free of Hamas captivity in Gaza have instructed the BBC about how their daughters had been abused, together with being starved, intimidated and threatened by way of armed males, and compelled to cook dinner and blank.

They recounted how the hostages had been held in underground tunnels and constructions, witnessed bodily abuse and had been made to take part in Hamas propaganda movies, together with, in a single case, by way of faking her personal loss of life.

They stated the ladies discovered power via sharing tales, drawing and protecting a diary.

Not one of the females have given interviews to the media since their drop, and their oldsters say the overall main points of what they persevered are nonetheless rising. There also are issues they are able to’t talk about because of fears it might put the hostages nonetheless in Gaza in peril.

3 of the 4 females whose oldsters told to the BBC had been feminine infantrymen abducted by way of Hamas from the Nahal Ouncesarmy bottom related Gaza on 7 October 2023.

The hostages’ get right of entry to to meals and their remedy by way of male guards various over the 15 months they had been held, their oldsters stated. They had been moved between places, hardly ever optical daylight.

“It was very different between the places that she went – it could be a good tunnel, it could be a very bad tunnel. It could be a good house or a bad house,” stated the daddy of Agam Berger, 20, a soldier who were at Nahal Oz..

One of the crucial parks had just right meals, some had “very bad food… they just tried to survive,” Shlomi Berger stated.

“They [and their captors] had to run away from one place to another because they are in a war zone there. It was very dangerous to be there,” stated Orly Gilboa, whose daughter Daniella used to be additionally abducted from the bottom.

When Daniella watched the drop of 3 male hostages latter future – who got here out slim and emaciated – she instructed her mom: “If I had been released two months ago I would have probably looked like them.”

“She got thinner, she lost a lot of her weight through the captivity. But in the last two months they were given a lot of food to gain weight,” Ms Gilboa says.

Alternative oldsters have additionally reported important weight reduction. Meirav Leshem Gonen’s daughter used to be taken by way of Hamas from the Nova song competition.

Romi, 24, used to be exempt within the first future of the ceasefire in January – she had misplaced “20% of her body weight”, says her mom.

Ms Gilboa says the toughest factor she persevered used to be optical a video that recommended her daughter were killed. Her captors poured powder on her so she seemed like she used to be coated in plaster, as though she used to be killed in an Israeli army crash.

“I think everyone who saw it believed it, but I just kept telling myself that it can’t be,” she instructed the BBC.

The battle used to be brought about by way of Hamas’s remarkable assault on Israel on 7 October 2023, when gunmen killed about 1,200 society and took some other 251 hostage.

Greater than 48,230 society were killed in Gaza since, consistent with the length’s Hamas-run fitness ministry. About two-thirds of Gaza’s constructions were destroyed or broken, estimates the UN.

Up to now, 16 Israeli and 5 Thai hostages were exchanged for greater than 600 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel beneath the ceasefire do business in that started on 19 January.

Mr Berger says his daughter, Agam, used to be threatened by way of her captors and witnessed bodily abuse pace in captivity.

“Sometimes they tortured other female hostages in front of her eyes,” he says, referring in particular to an attack on Amit Soussana, a former hostage who used to be exempt in November 2023.

Mr Berger says his daughter instructed him how they had been continuously watched over by way of armed males, “playing all the time with their guns and their hand grenades”.

He says the male captors handled the ladies with “big disrespect”, together with forcing them to scrub and get ready meals.

“That was really bothering her. She’s a girl that if she has something to say, she’ll say it. She’s not shy. And sometimes she told them what she was thinking about them and their behaviour,” he says.

He provides that during a little business of resistance, Agam had refused to accomplish any jobs at the Sabbath, the Jewish occasion of remains. The boys detaining her authorized this.

They had been additionally now not allowed to talk loudly.

“When Agam came [back to Israel] she wanted to speak all the time… After a day, she had no voice because she’d spoken so much,” Mr Berger says.

Yoni Levy, whose daughter Naama, 20, used to be additionally taken from the military bottom, says she used to be once in a while held in places the place there used to be a TV or radio taking part in.

As soon as, Naama noticed her father speaking on TV. “It gave her a lot of hope and optimism… that nobody would forget her, and we’ll do whatever is needed to take her out of this hell.”

He says for Naama, the Hamas assault at the military bottom used to be “was much more traumatic than the captivity itself”.

“It may change but at this stage we think that this is the most tragic day that she’s talked about,” Mr Levy says.

Photos of Naama that occasion presentations her and alternative feminine infantrymen in bloodstained clothes surrounded by way of armed males in a room on the bottom sooner than being pressured right into a automobile and brought to Gaza.

The 3 feminine infantrymen whose oldsters told to the BBC are amongst 5 from an all-women unarmed army unit at Nahal Ouncesfreed within the first spherical of the ceasefire.

Individuals of the unit, recognized in Hebrew as Tatzpitaniyot, are tasked with staring at the Gaza border and searching for indicators of the rest suspicious. Survivors and kin of a few of the ones killed that occasion say that they’d been threat for months that Hamas were getting ready for an assault.

A couple of days sooner than the 7 October assault, Daniella were at house on a fracture from carrier. She had instructed her mom next: “Mummy, when I go back to the army, there’s going to be a war.”

“I didn’t think it was going to be such a war and of course that my daughter would be taken hostage,” Ms Gilboa says.

Ms Gilboa and the households of the 2 alternative eyewitnesses who told to the BBC say they’re becoming a member of requires an inquiry into what came about.

They are saying their daughters stay involved concerning the situations of the ones nonetheless in Gaza and feature referred to as for the ceasefire to proceed.

In the meantime, Ms Leshem Gonen says she continues to be finding out what came about to her daughter Romi.

She used to be shot on the Nova song competition and her mom says she used to be now not correctly handled, resignation her with “an open wound where she could see the bone”.

“This is something we can know and that she speaks about. The other things, I think it will take time.”

Ms Leshem Gonen says Romi described her drop within the first future of the truce as “intimidating” and “frightening”. She used to be surrounded by way of gunmen and crowds. However the hour in their reunion used to be “so powerful”.

The oldsters additionally described how their daughters had discovered tactics to get via each and every occasion in captivity – via drawing, making notes or sharing tales with each and every alternative.

“They wrote as much as they could, every day – what was happening, where were they moving, who were the guards and things like that,” says Mr Berger.

Past in captivity, the younger females had dreamt concerning the issues they sought after to do once they were given house: getting a haircut and consuming sushi.

Daniella had drawn a butterfly with the promise “freedom” pace in captivity – she now has that tattooed on her arm.

They’re adapting to year again in Israel, and their households say they’re taking the medication step-by-step.

The hour of reunion along with his daughter Naama continues to be a blur, says Mr Levy, however he recollects the emotion.

“The feeling was that… I will take care of you now, and everything’s going to be OK. Daddy’s here. That’s all. And then everything was quiet.”

Alternative reporting by way of Naomi Scherbel-Ball