'Deprived of food': Freed Israeli hostages recall ordeal in Hamas captivity

Family members of hostages said some of the hostages had at least occasional access to radio or television and heard or saw their relatives campaigning for their release, which helped them survive

By Isabel Kershner,

 

Doron Steinbrecher vowed that she would never wear pink again when she made her first public comments in a video after being freed from more than 15 months in Hamas captivity in Gaza. 

A year ago, she had appeared in a hostage video made by her captors wearing a pale rose-coloured sweatshirt. When the Palestinian militant group Hamas released her last month, she was dressed in a bright magenta track suit and looked pale.

Sitting in front of a camera again took her back to the difficult moments when her captors filmed her in Gaza,  Steinbrecher, 31, said in the video, looking composed and smiling at times. 

 

“This time, I’m sitting comfortably on a couch with my family watching me in a warm and pleasant place,” she said. Trying to convey that she had not been broken, she said it was important for her to show everyone that “I’m OK.” 

As families and sympathisers at home and abroad doggedly campaigned for the release of the Israeli hostages, most people knew them only as faces staring out from posters. Now, with 16 Israelis released since January 19 under the cease-fire deal with Hamas, those haunting faces are coming to life in video clips, social media posts and statements from relatives that provide glimpses of the joy and relief of freedom as well as hints of the torment they have endured. 

The brief messages they have sent out have mostly been expressions of gratitude to all those who worked for their release and pleas not to give up until the last hostage is freed. 

The urgency of that message became even clearer on Saturday, when many Israelis were shocked to see the emaciated condition of the latest three hostages who were released: Eli Sharabi, 52; Or Levy, 34; and Ohad Ben-Ami, 56. 

Some relatives have said that the hostages released earlier were often deprived of food, suffered severe loss of weight and muscle mass, and rarely saw sunlight. Family members said some of the hostages had at least occasional access to radio or television and heard or saw their relatives campaigning for their release, which helped them survive. 

Col Avi Benov, a doctor and deputy chief of the Israeli military’s medical corps, told reporters that several of the recently released female hostages had spent the last eight months underground in Hamas tunnels in Gaza. Some hostages who were released in November 2023 have described suffocating humidity in the tunnels that made it difficult to breathe. 

Colonel Benov said the first seven women recently released were all were suffering from “mild starvation,” while some still had shrapnel in their bodies from injuries they sustained on October 7, 2023. That was the day Hamas led an attack from Gaza on southern Israel that ended with about 1,200 dead and about 250 people taken back to Gaza as hostages. The attack ignited a 15-month war, with Israel’s offensive in Gaza killing tens of thousands of Palestinians and devastating the territory. 

Of the roughly 250 captives, scores were released during a weeklong truce later that year while some have been killed in captivity. More than 70 hostages have not yet been returned, including at least 35 who are believed to be dead, according to the Israeli government. 

A total of 25 hostages are expected to be released, along with the bodies of eight others, during the initial six-week cease-fire that took effect last month. They are being exchanged for about 1,500 Palestinian prisoners, some of them convicted of killing Israelis.

 

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