Freed IDF observers recall captivity, release

The handover ceremony did not humiliate them, they said, as they felt they had won because they survived unbroken.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Two of the female IDF observers held hostage by Hamas for 477 days recalled their captivity and release in an interview with IDF Radio aired Sunday to mark the first anniversary of their return.

Naama Levy and Karina Ariev, who served at the Nachal Oz border post, described the terror and confusion as Hamas’ elite Nukhba forces overran the base on the morning of Oct. 7, 2023.

The hours Levy spent huddled with fellow soldiers in a protected room “felt like an eternity,” she said, as “complete chaos” raged outside.

“You feel the abandonment — that you’re there and no one is coming,” Levy said. “You’re sitting across from friends who were murdered, and you don’t understand why it’s not ending.”

Ariev recalled being wounded, bleeding, and “slowly realizing that for you, the story is over.”

Levy had arrived at the base only the day before to begin her service, when she first met Ariev.

The two were abducted separately, however.

Levy — whose bruised face and blood-stained sweatpants, seen in footage posted online by her captors on the day of her abduction, was early proof of the terrorists’ sexual war crimes — spent the first 50 days of captivity alone.

Eight months after her release, Levy said she had suffered severe malnutrition, indescribable hunger, and had many injuries that had been left untreated.

She was eventually brought to the apartment where four other observers were being held, including Ariev, and the women spent the rest of their captivity together.

“We saw the terrorist, and we saw someone who was completely covered, and we realized that it’s Naama. We didn’t stop talking for two-three days straight,” Ariev recalled.

Unlike other hostages, who were forced to practice what they would say onstage before being allowed to enter the Red Cross vehicles that would take them to the Gaza border, the women said they had no advance warning of their release ceremony.

They were driven to Palestine Square in Gaza City and instructed to get out and walk onto a stage.

“We were fine with it,” Ariev said. “We felt: We won. We survived. We’re on our way home.”

They said they did not initially understand that the event was intended to humiliate them. Instead, they acted naturally, and felt pride that their captors had failed to break them and that they had “remained the same people we always were.”

In a separate Army Radio interview, Levy and Ariev said that on rare occasions they managed to hear its broadcasts while in captivity — moments they described as deeply emotional and uplifting.

They even heard songs like “Harbu Darbu,” an Arabic war cry, which they said was their biggest morale booster. The lyrics describe how every division in the IDF was dedicated to destroying Hamas and killing its top echelon, calling out leaders like Yahya Sinwar and Hassan Nasrallah by name.

Every figure mentioned in the song was eventually killed by Israel during the war.

Asked whether their captors reacted angrily, the women said the terrorists did not understand the lyrics.

“They didn’t catch on — luckily,” they said.

Listening to Israeli radio, they added, was their greatest wish in captivity, as it allowed them to feel connected to home and understand what was happening in Israel.

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