Parents of freed Hamas hostages give details of ordeal happymamay

Parents told four Israeli hostages who were freed from the Hamas families in Gaza BBC about how their daughters were abused, including hunger, intimidation and threat by armed men, and forced to cook and clean.

They narrated how the hostages were detained in underground tunnels and buildings, and they witnessed physical abuse and were presented to participate in the videos of advertising in Hamas, including, in one case, by forging her death.

They said that women found strength by sharing stories, drawing and preserving diaries.

None of the women interviewed the media since their release, and their parents say that the full details of what they were carrying are still emerging. There are also things that they cannot talk about because of fears that the hostages in Gaza may be at risk.

Three of the four women in which her parents spoke to the BBC was one of the soldiers who was kidnapped by Hamas from the base of the Army Naga near Gaza on October 7, 2023.

Their fathers said that the hostages reaching and treating them by male guards varied over the 15 months in which they were reserved. They were moved between the sites, and they rarely see sunlight.

“It was completely different between the places I went to – it could be a good tunnel, and it might be a very bad tunnel. It might be a good house or a bad house,” said Ajam Berger’s father, 20, a soldier. Which was in the o’clock.

Shlomari Berger said that some places had good food, and some were “very bad food … they just tried to survive.”

“they [and their captors] I had to escape from one place to another because they are in a war zone there. “It was very dangerous to be there,” said Orly Gilboa, who kidnapped his daughter Daniela from the base.

When he saw Daniela The release of three male hostages last week – who came out of thin and turbulent – her mother told her: “If I was released two months ago, but I might look like them.”

“She has become thinner, she lost a lot of weight during captivity. But in the past two months they got a lot of food to gain weight,” says Gilbo.

Other parents have also reported a great weight loss. The daughter of Miral Leshm Gunn was taken by Hamas from the Nova Music Festival.

Her mother says that Rumi, 24, was released in the first week of the ceasefire in January – she lost “20 % of her body weight.”

Mrs. Gilboa says that the most difficult thing she endured is to see a video clip that her daughter suggested that she had been killed. Her kidnappers poured her powder, so it seemed to be covered with plaster, as if she was killed in an Israeli military strike.

“I think everyone who saw that thinks that, but I kept telling myself that it could not be,” she told the BBC.

The war arose due to the unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, when gunmen killed about 1,200 people and took another 251 hostages.

More than 4,230 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health in the region. About two -thirds of Gaza buildings have been destroyed or damaged, the United Nations is estimated.

So far, 16 Israelis and five Thai hostages have been exchanged for more than 600 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel under the ceasefire deal that started on January 19.

Mr. Berger says his daughter, Ajam, is threatened by her kidnappers and witnessed physically while he was in captivity.

“Sometimes they tortured another hostage in front of her eyes,” he says, in particular, to an attack on Amit Sawana, the previous hostage that was released in November 2023.

Mr. Berger says that his daughter told him how I have seen the armed men constantly, “playing all the time with their guns and hand grenades.”

He says that male kidnappers dealt with women with “great lack of respect”, including forcing them to clean and prepare food.

“That was really bothering her. She is a girl that if she had what she was saying, she will say that. She is not shy. Sometimes I told them what she was thinking about them and their behavior,” he says.

He adds that in the work of a small resistance, he refused to perform any jobs on Saturday, the Jewish day to rest. Men who are holding them accepted this.

They were also not allowed to speak loudly.

“When Ajam came [back to Israel] She wanted to speak all the time … a day later, she had no sound because she spoke a lot. “

Yoni Levy, whose daughter, 20 -year -old, from the army base, says she was sometimes held in locations there was a TV or radio.

Once, Nama saw her father talking on TV. “He gave her a lot of hope and optimism … that no one forgets her, and we will do everything required to get her out of this hell.”

“It was more shocking than the same families,” says Loamama.

“This may change, but at this stage we believe this is the most tragic day that I talked about,” says Mr. Levy.

Smooth footage shows that day that they and other soldiers in blood -stained clothes surrounded by armed men in a room at the base before being forced on the car and transporting it to Gaza.

The three soldiers whose parents spoke to the BBC out of five unarmed military units in Naguz in the first round of the ceasefire.

The unit members, known as the Hebrew language as Tatzpitaniyot, are assigned to monitor the Gaza border and search for signs of anything suspicious. The survivors and relatives of some of those who were killed on that day said they were warning for several months that Hamas was preparing for an attack.

A few days before the October 7 attack, Daniela was at home at a break. Her mother told then: “A mummy, when I return to the army, there will be a war.”

“I didn’t think it would be this war, and of course my daughter would be taken into account,” says Gilbo.

Mrs. Gilboa and the families of other observers who spoke to BBC say they join calls for an investigation into what happened.

They say that their daughters are still concerned about the conditions of those who are still in Gaza and called for a ceasefire.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Lesem Gunn says she is still learning what happened to her daughter Rumi.

She was filmed at the Nova Music Festival and her mother says she did not treat properly, leaving her “an open wound where she can see the bone.”

“This is something we can know and they are talking. Other things, I think it will take some time.”

Mrs. Leshm Gunn says that Rumi described her launch in the first week of the armistice as “frightening” and “scary”. She was surrounded by gunmen and crowds. But a moment I did not reunite was “very strong.”

Parents also describe how they found their daughters ways to reach every day in captivity – by drawing, writing down notes or sharing stories with each other.

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

While he was in captivity, the young women dreamed of the things they wanted to do when they got home: get a haircut and take sushi.

Daniela had drawn a butterfly with the word “freedom” while she was in captivity – she now has a tattoo on her arm.

They adapt to life in Israel, and their families say they take a step -by -step recovery.

Mr. Levy says that the moment of his daughter Naama is still blurry, but he remembers emotion.

“The feeling was … I will take care of you now, and everything will be fine. Dad here. That’s it. Then everything was calm.”

Additional reports by Naomi Sherbil Paul