They stumbled through the darkness of the hastily dug tunnels beneath Gaza City, wondering if they would ever see their loved ones again.
Elderly women, young mothers and frightened children were kidnapped and used as pawns to advance the cause of a terrorist group that killed 1,300 Israelis on October 7, the deadliest day in the Jewish nation’s history.
For weeks they were starved, beaten, drugged, branded and forced to watch footage of Hamas terrorists invading their homeland with guns pointed at their heads until the right moment came for the terror group.
In return for a four-day precarious ceasefire, the release of 150 Palestinian women and children from Israeli prisons and permission to drive at least 200 aid trucks into the Gaza Strip every day, Hamas promised to release at least 50 prisoners it had taken in the midst of chaos and spilled blood.
The deal was open-ended and allowed additional days of ceasefire to be agreed in exchange for more hostages.
Hamas, desperate for a brief respite from the war that has already claimed the lives of at least 15,000 of its civilians in Gaza, according to the UN, made the most of the extensions and released a total of 105 hostages this weekend.
Yagil and Or, ages 12 and 16, were drugged and branded as hostages by Hamas, their uncle said
Eitan Yahalomi, 12, (pictured) was one of several young hostages held to watch footage of Hamas terrorists invading their homeland with guns pointed at their heads
Danielle Aloni, who was a Hamas hostage along with her five-year-old daughter Emilia, was reportedly forced to write a propaganda letter to her family
Israeli hostages released on November 26, 2023: Pictured above: Hagar Brodutch and children Ofri, Yuval and Oriya, Roni Krivoi; Center: Chen Almog Goldstein and her children Agam, Gal and Tal Almog; below: Avigail Idan, Elma Avraham, Aviva Siegel and siblings Ela and Dafna Elyakim
About 13 Israeli hostages were released from Hamas captivity: Margalit Moses, Adina Moshe, Danielle Aloni and her daughter Emilia, Doron Asher and her daughters Raz and Aviv, Hanna Katzir, Keren Munder and her son Ohad, Ruti Munder, Yaffa Adar and Hannah Perry
The hostages released this evening, pictured from top left to bottom right: Bilal and Aisha Ziyadne, 18 and 17, Ilana Gritzewsky, 30, Nili Margalit, 40, Shani Goren, 29, Amit Soussana, 40, Sapir Cohen, 29, and Mia Schem, 21
Just over 100 people from around the world remain in the dark, musty tunnels beneath Gaza as Israel and Hamas throw fire and brimstone at each other again, eight weeks into the deadliest war between the two in decades.
The families of those still held by Hamas fear for their safety and their mental and physical well-being.
The statements of those already released do little to allay these fears.
Relatives of recently released hostages, who have cared for them in the days and weeks since their release, are slowly beginning to reveal to the world how poorly they have been treated by Hamas.
Yagil and Or Yaakov, aged 12 and 16 respectively, were returned to their families last Monday after being held in their home along with their father Yair Yaakov and his partner Meirav Tal, who are believed to still be in captivity Captured at home were Kibbutz Nir Oz.
Smoke rises from buildings after they were hit by Israeli attacks after fighting resumed between Israel and Hamas militants, December 2, 2023
About 1.7 million Palestinians have been forced from their homes, the United Nations said in late November
Israeli soldiers with their armored fighting vehicles gather at a position near the Gaza Strip border in southern Israel on December 2, 2023
Their uncle Yaniv revealed that the two boys were branded to ensure they could be identified if they ran away.
“Hamas took each child’s leg and stuck it in the exhaust pipe of a motorcycle to leave a mark in case they escaped so they could be found,” he said this week.
“They were drugged, they were treated so badly, but at least they are with us.”
The terrorists treated Mia Schem, a young 21-year-old who was taken from the Nova festival, with a little more caution.
Her aunt, Vivian Hadar, revealed that a veterinarian had operated on her badly injured hand, which was shot on October 7 while she was romping with her friends.
She said the treatment was a shoddy job and remained very tight-lipped about her weeks underground.
Mia, flanked by armed men and surrounded by hundreds of screaming men, looks petrified as she is placed into a Red Cross vehicle
Mia Shem (pictured center) was one of two women released by Hamas today after the ceasefire agreement was extended just minutes before the timeout expired
The French-Israeli hostage has been held captive for 54 days since being taken to Gaza on October 7
“She doesn’t say much,” Hadar said, adding that the moment relatives started asking questions, “we realized it was very difficult for her.”
It is not clear whether this lack of resources was real or artificial to weaken the hostages. However, other survivors said they lived on meager meals for weeks during their detention.
An aunt of Abigal Idan, an American-Israeli citizen who was taken hostage after being orphaned during the Hamas invasion and who turned four just days before her release, said her young niece only had one Piece of flatbread shared with some za’. Aatar, a Middle Eastern spice blend, with four other prisoners every day.
She and the four other prisoners she was with did not bathe once during their 50 days held hostage and were kept in a series of above-ground apartments.
As a result of the lack of laundry, Abigail developed severe lice and her head was cut off.
“She was covered in it. “It took quite an effort to help her get some of it off the first night,” her aunt told the New York Times.
Even though it withheld food, water and news from the hostages, Hamas forced them to carry out propaganda that helped its image.
Sharon Hertzman Avigdori hugs her son after she and her daughter were released from Hamas captivity early November 26. As a four-day ceasefire between Israel and Hamas now ends in the last 24 hours, a picture is beginning to emerge of the horrific conditions in which the freed hostages have been held by the terror group over the past seven weeks
Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, (center) was taken against her will from her home on Kibbutz Nir Oz during Hamas’s invasion of Israel on October 7
Sharone Lifschitz, whose mother was released in October, learned this week that a returned hostage had seen her father, 83-year-old Oded Lifshitz, in captivity
Danielle Aloni, who was held with her six-year-old daughter Emily, reportedly wrote a letter published by Hamas while she was being taken hostage, claiming that they were both doing well and being treated well.
She praised the terrorists for their “extraordinary humanity” towards her daughter.
“Children shouldn’t be in prison, but thanks to you and other nice people we met along the way… My daughter thought she was a queen in Gaza,” said the letter, published in Hebrew and Arabic.
It’s not clear whether Danielle wrote the note of her own free will or whether she was forced to pen the gushing tribute – which also states that she would “always remain captive in gratitude” because her daughter did not endure captivity left with a “psychological shock”. ‘
Her family quickly rebuked the letter, with one of her cousins writing shortly after the letter was published: “Hamas just released more propaganda about my family.”
Danielle later said in an interview, “Our girl has seen things that children of this or any age shouldn’t see.”
“It was a horror film.”
A Hamas fighter and Red Cross medics help newly released Israeli hostage Maya Regev into a Red Cross vehicle early November 26 in the Gaza Strip
Emily was brought to safety and reunited with her father after 50 days in captivity
Nine-year-old Irish-Israeli former hostage Emily Hand hugs her father in a hospital in Israel after she was released by Hamas as part of a hostage-for-prisoner swap between Hamas and Israel on November 26
Raz Asher (left), four, her two-year-old sister Aviv (right) and their mother Doron, 34, reunite with their father and husband Yoni on Sunday at Schneider Children’s Medical Center
Raz Asher (left), four, her two-year-old sister Aviv (right) and their mother Doron, 34, reunite with their father and husband Yoni on Sunday at Schneider Children’s Medical Center
Other parents of hostages agreed with Danielle that children should not have to face the horrors that await them beneath Gaza.
Thomas Hand, the father of Emily, who was nine when she was held by Hamas, stunned the world when he said he was glad his daughter was dead and not in the terrorist group’s hands.
But his world changed when Israeli officials told him that their intelligence was wrong and that she was alive.
Emily and her friend Rotem Shoshani, 13, were housed above ground in a comparatively luxurious house in northern Gaza.
But that would have done little to offset the horrors at Kibbutz Be’eri, the site of the worst settlement massacre in which at least 130 people were slaughtered in their homes.
Disgusting photos of the aftermath of the Kibbutz Be’eri massacre showed Israeli civilians killed in their bedrooms in the first hours of Hamas’ surprise attack.
Almost all of the photos forwarded to Web by the Israeli embassy in London were too graphic to share publicly, and showed several bodies scattered in a small room in the community of about 1,000 people near the Gaza border .
The photos were some of the clearest depictions of exactly what was happening in the settlement.
In addition to the horrors the young couple experienced in their homes, Emily saw a man shot dead while she was being held in Gaza, her sister Natali Hand revealed.
Two-year-old Aviv Asher, her four-year-old sister Raz and their mother Doron step out of an Israeli helicopter
Israeli soldiers operate in the Gaza Strip after a temporary ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas expires, in this handout image released Dec. 2, 2023
The Ministry of Defense (MoD) confirmed on Saturday that ministers had been working with allies in the region to “secure the release of hostages”, including British nationals
Natali added that the two were desperate because they only found out about their release at the last moment.
The testimonies of the released survivors have prompted the world to find more of them before Hamas can exploit them further.
The RAF will conduct “unarmed surveillance flights” across the Middle East to find locations where Hamas is holding kidnapped civilian hostages.
The Ministry of Defense (MoD) confirmed on Saturday that ministers had been working with allies in the region to “secure the release of hostages”, including British nationals.
Fighting between Israel and Hamas resumed on Friday after a week-long ceasefire, although more than 130 hostages remained held captive in the Gaza Strip.
In the weeks following Hamas’s bloody raids in Israel on October 7, Downing Street said at least 12 British nationals had been killed in the attack and another five were still missing.
Adina Moshe was released from Gaza back to Israel by her Hamas captors on Friday
Some of them are believed to have been kidnapped, but the British government has not confirmed how many may be in the clutches of Hamas.
In a statement published on the government website, the Ministry of Defense said: “The safety of British nationals is our top priority.”
“In support of ongoing hostage rescue activities, the UK Ministry of Defense will conduct surveillance flights over the Eastern Mediterranean, including operations in the airspace over Israel and Gaza.”
“Surveillance aircraft will be unarmed, have no combat mission and will only be tasked with locating hostages.”
“Only information related to the hostage rescue will be passed on to the authorities responsible for the hostage rescue.”
Defense Ministry officials said the reconnaissance flights would use a number of unarmed aircraft, including Shadow R1s used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) for intelligence gathering.
Information about the possible whereabouts of the prisoners is passed on to Israel.