As some of the Israeli hostages return home after nearly 50 days of captivity, horrific details about their abduction and treatment by the terrorist group Hamas are coming to light.
Abducted women were kept in cages. Hostages, including children, were beaten and deprived of food, the Israeli media reports. At least in one instance, Hamas abductors forced Israeli hostages, including a 12-year-old child, to watch the horrific videos of October 7 atrocities.
“Twelve-year-old Eitan Yahalomi, who was kidnapped from Nir Oz to Gaza alone, was returned to Israel Monday night after 52 days in Hamas captivity. His relatives talked about the horrors he went through in captivity,” the Israeli news website Ynet reported Tuesday. “Eitan’s aunt said this morning that he “experienced horrors” at the hands of Hamas terrorists, who, among other things, beat him, forced him to watch footage of the massacre they carried out on October 7, and threatened him and the other children they kidnapped with guns when they cried.”
Before letting the hostages go, Hamas terrorists forced some of them to write letters praising their captors, many of whom had brutalized and murdered their family members and loved ones during the October 7 massacre.
The Jerusalem Post reported some of the hostage testimonies on Tuesday:
Women who were abducted from Israeli territory and held hostage by Hamas in Gaza were kept in cages, according to a report by Israeli media, citing a statement from a member of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.This claim is not the first of its kind: In the days immediately following the October 7 attacks, videos from Hamas’s Telegram channel showed child hostages being kept in cages for the majority of their time in captivity. (…)Hamas distributed a letter on Monday allegedly written by Danielle Aloni, who was kidnapped alongside her 5-year-old daughter Emilia and held in captivity. (…) This letter is one of many that hostages were forced to write, according to Israeli media reports. (…)Some of the hostages spoke of their worry about last-minute attempts by Hamas or Gazans – who had thrown stones at the vehicles taking them to Egypt – to attack them before they got home. “Until the last moment we weren’t sure,” a hostage said: “We thought they would lynch us on the way to Israel.”
Videos of the hostage release, stage-managed by Hamas, show Gaza residents jeering and threatening Israeli hostages as they leave the terrorist-controlled territory in a Red Cross caravan. The hostages were ordered to smile and wave at Hamas captors in a depraved bid to bolster the image of the terrorist group.
Palestinians on the streets can be seen hugging and cheering the terrorists of Hamas and Islamic Jihad (PIJ) as they came out of their tunnels and bunkers for the hostage release. Gaza civilians celebrated the hostages-for-terrorist deal as a victory for their cause, and greeted terrorists with chants of ‘Allahu Akbar.’
More details are yet to come as most of the hostages have not spoken about their ordeal in public and are receiving necessary medical attention. “Freed hostages have mostly kept out of the public eye since their return. Any details about their ordeal have come through relatives, who have not revealed much,” the newspaper Israel Hayom noted Tuesday. “This round of releases has seen mostly women and children freed. They have been undergoing physical and psychological tests at Israeli hospitals before returning home.”
The behavior of Gazans is consistent with their support for Hamas’s October 7 massacre when they turned out in thousands to beat and humiliate Israeli hostages dragged from their homes from across the border. Ordinary Gaza residents were seen spatting on Israeli hostages as Hamas terrorists paraded them naked through the streets.
Hamas on Wednesday claimed that an Israeli mother, Shira Bibas, and her two children, a four-year-old and a 10-month-old baby, were ‘killed’ after they were handed over to another terrorist group in Gaza. The IDF is checking the validity of the claim.
The Times of Israel reported:
The Israel Defense Forces says it has notified the Bibas family of a Hamas statement regarding three of the family members who are being held hostage by the terror group.Hamas claimed earlier today, in an unverified statement, that mother Shira, four-year-old Ariel and 10-month-old baby Kfir were killed.“The Hamas terror organization continues to act in a cruel and inhumane manner,” the IDF says, adding that it is investigating the veracity of the information published by Hamas.The Bibas family, including baby Kfir, was transferred by Hamas to another Palestinian terror group in Gaza, according to the IDF.Kfir was kidnapped by Hamas from Kibbutz Nir Oz along with his brother Ariel and parents Yarden, 34, and Shiri, 32, when terrorists rampaged through southern communities on October 7.
Amid reports that Israel may extend the ceasefire for a couple of more days to secure the release of additional hostages, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assured that the military will resume the Gaza offensive aimed at eliminating Hamas once the truce ends. “There is no way we are not going back to fighting until the end,” the Israeli leader vowed on Wednesday. “This is my policy, the entire cabinet stands behind it, the entire government stands behind it, the soldiers stand behind it, the people stand behind it – this is exactly what we will do.”
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY