When drinks came, many received diluted seawater that damaged their teeth and gums while wreaking havoc on their immune systems.
When Eli Sharabi, Ohad Ben Ami, and Or Levy were released from Hamas captivity last month, they appeared as shadows of themselves.
After 491 days, their bodies told stories their lips might never fully express. Israeli health officials would later confirm that the brave heroes had lost as much as 40% of their body weight.
“Extreme malnutrition,” Dr. Hagar Mizrahi, head of the Medical Division for Israel’s Ministry of Health, tells the Jerusalem Post. Describing their condition as “very concerning.”
Dr. Mizrahi noted that they will require intense physical therapy to gradually rebuild lost muscle mass.
According to others who made it out of Gaza alive, Hamas routinely turned starvation into a weapon causing their bodies to consuming themselves from the inside out.
Aviva Siegel, freed during a brief ceasefire in November 2024, described how her captors would deliberately withhold all food for full days at a stretch.
When drinks came, many received diluted seawater that damaged their teeth and gums while wreaking havoc on their immune systems.
The sight of emaciated, traumatized, and physically broken hostages returning home has only deepened Israel’s collective anxiety about those left behind.
Families of victims along with thousands of supporters gather at weekly rallies demanding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strike whatever deal necessary to bring them home.
It is believed that 27 of the 63 hostages remaining are still living.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump met with former hostages in the Oval Office who shared personal accounts of their abuse.
Sharabi presented Trump with a framed cartoon juxtaposing the Holocaust, titled “Never Again,” with an image of himself in the hands of Hamas terrorists, titled “Again.”
Afterwards, Trump took to Truth Social to warn Hamas there would be “hell to pay” if all the hostages were not released immediately.
“I am sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job, not a single Hamas member will be safe if you don’t do as I say,” he wrote. “Release all of the hostages now, not later, and immediately return all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered, or it is OVER for you.”
