By the time nine-year-old Emily Hand was released, she thought she had been in Hamas captivity for a year.
She told her father that they weren’t allowed to speak out loud, and she learned how to say, “be quiet” in Arabic.
Twelve-year-old Eitan Yahalomi said that when the kids cried, Hamas threatened them with weapons. So they learned to hold it all in.
The hostages were held deep in underground tunnels, sometimes alone, sometimes together. They were beaten with sticks, only given plastic chairs to sleep on, not allowed to shower, and had to wait hours to use the bathroom.
The hostages who came home were found to be suffering from severe malnutrition, and lost 5-10 kilo of weight on average. One lost 20 kilo, which is 44 lbs. They explained that they were only given one meal each day, consisting of just rice, sometimes bread, sometimes nothing. When they were held together, the men would give their portions to the elderly and children, to keep them alive.
Eitan, the sensitive little boy who was captured alone, told his parents that the terrorists forced him to watch an hour of horror footage from the October 7th massacre. The same footage that Israel showed in closed screenings to select journalists and politicians, many of whom ran out midway through, in tears.
When Eitan was brought into Gaza, on the back of a Hamas motorcycle, he said that civilians came out to see and they all happily beat him. Civilians. Of all ages.
The civilians of Gaza had the chance to save Ron Krivolli, but instead, they turned him in to Hamas. Ron was being held alone in an apartment building, and when it was bombed by the IDF, he took the chance to escape. He wandered around for four days trying to find his way to Israel. But ordinary Gaza people found him, and immediately brought him to Hamas.
Alma Avraham, the 84-year-old hostage who is fighting for her life in the ICU now, desperately needed medication. Her family begged the Red Crescent to bring it to her, but they refused. Yaffa Adar, the 85-year-old Holocaust survivor who was amongst the first to be released said she had begged Hamas to release Alma and other elderly women before her, who are barely still alive. Hamas so far only released hostages who have family members still in their cruel hands.
To top it all off, right before they were released, the hostages were given their first shower and change of clothing in over 50 days. Then they were forced to smile and wave at the masked Hamas terrorists, for photos. A propaganda display that an international public that is happily eating up.
The Gaza civilians didn’t get the memo though. They chased after the Red Crescent vans that escorted the hostages out of Gaza, jumped on the vehicles, and banged on the windows to terrify the children in one last display of barbaric cruelty.
Is your blood boiling yet? Because mine is.
©2023 B. Efune