Elkana Bohbot: ’I’ve never experienced abuse like that in my life.’

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Former hostage Elkana Bohbot said Hamas captors subjected him and other Israelis held in Gaza to psychological abuse that began with apparent kind treatment followed by extreme cruelty.

Bohbot, one of the producers of the Nova Music Festival, spoke about the experience during an interview on the podcast “Voice of Nova” after spending 738 days in Hamas captivity in the Gaza Strip.

He said he was being held alongside two other hostages, identified as Ohad and Bar, when a captor unexpectedly brought them a tray of lamb shank and rice.

“One day we had this meal he prepared for us,” Bohbot said. “They brought us lamb shank – it’s called mandi. It’s the richest meal in Gaza.”

According to Bohbot, the hostages were surprised by the meal because it was served during the middle of the day while they were underground.

“Suddenly, in the middle of the day, he brings you a tray with lamb shank and rice,” he said. “They cook it underground, and it’s delicious, rich – a very rich Arab dish – and he gives it to us.”

Bohbot said the hostages quickly ate the food because they worried the captor might take it away.

After finishing the meal, Bohbot recalled telling the captor: “Listen, this is very honorable, this is food with a lot of respect.”

He said the captor then responded: “Come, come, I’ll show you what respect is. I’ll show you why you ate this.”

According to Bohbot, the terrorist then played footage showing Israeli combat engineers being killed in a bombing involving an explosive device.

“Today we killed thirty of your soldiers – bon appétit,” the captor told them, Bohbot said.

Bohbot described the moment as one of the most severe forms of abuse he experienced during captivity.

“He shows you the video, and you throw everything up,” he said. “I’ve never experienced abuse like that in my life.”

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The French-Israeli citizen was abducted from the Nova music festival near Re’im after being shot in the arm during the attack.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

The Israel Defense Forces said it killed a Hamas operative involved in the Oct. 7, 2023, abduction of former hostage Mia Schem during a strike in Gaza late last month.

According to the military, Ibrahim Abu Sakkar, identified as both a Hamas operative and a paramedic in the group’s Military Medical Services, was killed in an April 29 strike while allegedly planning an attack against Israeli soldiers.

The IDF said Abu Sakkar had previously carried out attacks against troops and later confirmed through intelligence analysis that he had participated in Schem’s kidnapping during the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel.

“Following intelligence analysis, it can be confirmed that the terrorist Abu Sakkar infiltrated Israeli territory during the brutal Oct. 7 massacre and participated in the abduction of Mia Schem from the Mefalsim area,” the military said.

Schem became one of the most widely recognized hostages from the Oct. 7 attack after appearing in the first Hamas propaganda video released during the war.

The French-Israeli citizen was abducted from the Nova music festival near Re’im after being shot in the arm during the attack.

She was held in Gaza for 54 days before being released on Nov. 30, 2023.

Following her release, Schem publicly described conditions during her captivity, saying she was held in a dark, enclosed room under constant surveillance.

“You must not be seen, heard,” she said while recalling instructions she received from a guard.

She also said she was forced to appear in a Hamas propaganda video because “you do what you’re told. You’re afraid to die.”

According to Schem, one of her captors forced her to watch a televised news conference featuring her mother as a form of psychological torment.

She also said she was held inside the home of one of her captors, whose wife “toyed” with her and withheld food while serving meals to her husband.

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Former captives describe the strength Jewish acts of faith gave them amid terror and deprivation.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Six hostages who endured Hamas captivity in the tunnels together spoke for the first time in a joint interview aired Friday on Channel 12, revealing the incredible bond they forged and especially how acts of Jewish faith gave them strength.

Yosef Chaim Ohana, Segev Kalfon and Maxim Harkin were transferred underground to join Bar Kuperstein, Elkana Bohbot and Ohad Ben Ami after being held in nine different above-ground locations.

Hamas moved them following Operation Arnon on June 8, 2024, when IDF forces rescued four hostages from apartments in the Nuseirat refugee camp.

Despite their fear of the tunnels, the three said they felt safer underground from Israeli airstrikes and were grateful to find the others there, who reassured them they would adjust to the lack of air, constant hunger and physical confinement.

Ohana said the moment they bonded into one group came two days later, when their three “hosts” invited them to join their regular Friday night ceremony.

With toilet paper serving as makeshift kippahs, they stood together and “suddenly we were yelling out the Sabbath songs,” he said. “Screaming out the songs from home – it was an unbelievable moment. The place shook. That’s when we said, ‘It’s good we came down here.’”

“It was the most emotional thing I ever heard,” said Kuperstein.

They had many discussions around Divine Providence, Ben Ami said, who said that although he was a secular kibbutznik, he told the others he believed God was looking out for them, because each one had survived the Oct. 7 Hamas-led invasion when so many others didn’t.

“Maybe there is a God in heaven who wants us to live,” he recalled telling them. “We’ll survive this. He’s protecting us.”

“I felt I had to say ‘thank you’ for the food, drink, for lots of things, and I didn’t know how,” he added. “They taught me,” he said, pointing to the others.

They agreed immediately when asked if faith played a large role in their lives in the tunnels.

“I got to the point,” Kalfon said, “that I sewed kippahs for everyone out of Ohad’s jalabiya,” after Ben Ami was released in the second hostage deal in February 2025 and left it behind.

“Everything that linked us to our roots, to Judaism, strengthened us the most,” he added.

“Whether it was welcoming the Sabbath, the holidays, saying Shir Ha’maalot (Psalms) or Selichot (pre-Rosh Hashana prayers) … it’s strength that’s impossible to describe in words.”

Ben Ami was their unquestionably their father figure, the others agreed, being a husband and father in his 50s while they were all single and in their twenties.

He rejected the description of being their “leader,” but Ohana said that when a captor threatened to amputate one hostage’s finger for a propaganda video, after a long silence, Ben Ami said, “Take mine.”

The threat was ultimately abandoned, but that moment “stopped the joke, or whatever it was, because he sacrificed his finger,” Ohana said, pointing to Ben Ami, and the group fell silent.

For his part, Ben Ami said, “I was blessed to be with them, really. They looked out for me… If we needed to dig, they’d say, ‘You don’t dig.’ When the food came, they tried to give me first.”

When Ben Ami was the only one freed from the group in February, he said the first thing he told his daughters was, “You have five new brothers, and we have to fight for them” to be released as well.

They also recounted severe physical and psychological abuse, including beatings and extreme hunger, with the tiny portions that barely sustained three being split among all of them when they became six.

On the 450th day of captivity, the men said a new man came and told them to choose which three would be shot in the head and which would be shot in the knee, in retaliation for the killing of Hamas operatives.

They refused, and for seven hours, they were terrorized as their captors pretended to decide for them, and then changed their minds.

In the end, they were spared — but the man warned that the next “mistake” by Israel would mean immediate execution, and he would reappear sometimes, causing the group to fear greatly for their lives.

Their bond is unbreakable, the men affirmed in the interview.

“We were given our lives back as a gift,” Ben Ami said. “Our second lives will be better — and we’ll always strengthen each other and be there for each other.”

The post Six hostages recall faith, brotherhood in captivity appeared first on World Israel News.

Brig. Gen. (res.) Gal Hirsch detailed canceled missions, Qatar’s role and Hamas strategy in interview.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Brig. Gen. (res.) Gal Hirsch, Israel’s former coordinator for hostages and missing persons, revealed new details about canceled rescue operations, Qatar’s role in negotiations, and Hamas’ plan to hold captives for up to a decade in a Friday interview with Israel Hayom’s digital platform.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked Hirsch to take on the role the day after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel, when chaos still reigned and about 3,200 people were initially listed as missing.

By the second week, that number had dropped to 1,060 and later to 400, he said.

It took 10 months for forensic teams to identify the last victim of the massacre.

Hirsch built his coordination office on the fly, with about 2,000 people working for him at its height of operations, coordinating intelligence and negotiation efforts as well as maintaining constant contact with the families of the 251 hostages being held in Gaza.

Those included four captives from 2014 and 2015: the slain Lt. Hadar Goldin and St. Sgt. Oron Shaul from Operation Protective Edge, and two live, mentally unstable civilians, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who had crossed into Gaza on their own.

Hirsch said he did not believe Israel would recover all the hostages.

“We classified the captives into ‘Ron Arads’ – those who we suspected would never be found; ‘Wachsmans’ – those whose locations we knew but with a low chance of rescue; ‘Regevs and Goldwassers’ – the dead; and ‘Shalits’ – those who could be returned through a deal,” he said.

Arad was an IAF aviator shot down during the First Lebanon War who disappeared, possibly taken to Iran by Hezbollah terrorists.

Nachshon Wachsman, a soldier abducted by Palestinian terrorists from a traffic junction in 1994, was murdered by his captors during a failed rescue attempt.

Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser were IDF soldiers killed by Hezbollah during a 2006 cross-border attack that sparked the Second Lebanon War; their bodies were returned in a prisoner exchange in 2008.

Gilad Shalit was captured alive by Hamas terrorists in a cross-border attack in 2006 and exchanged five years later for 1,027 Palestinian terrorists.

Many hostage rescues were planned, Hirsch noted, with some being canceled even as they were underway.

“There were times when our unit was at the door, but we knew we wouldn’t get the seconds essential for a rescue, so we gave up,” he said.

In other cases, intelligence was not deemed complete enough to assure success or commanders feared an operation would endanger other hostages nearby, leading proposals to be shelved.

Hirsch sharply criticized Qatar, which offered to serve as a mediator early in the war. He challenged the Qataris to demonstrate their influence over Hamas, after which four hostages were released: an American mother and daughter, followed by two elderly Israeli women.

But Qatar — which has given Hamas billions of dollars over the years that funded terror training and a vast tunnel network — was not an honest broker, he noted.

“You know what killed me?” Hirsch said. “The huge gap between what I saw in the [intelligence] material and in the negotiating rooms. Inside, they demanded complete surrender, and to the world they said that Israel is being uncooperative.”

“The peak was during Ramadan: [Hamas head Yahya] Sinwar planned an ‘Al-Aqsa Flood 2’ but they blamed us, saying that our refusal to implement a cease-fire during the fast was torpedoing a deal.”

Hamas named its Oct. 7 invasion “Al-Aqsa Flood” to portray the mass slaughter of nearly 1,200 men, women and children as a defense of the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount.

Hirsch revealed that Sinwar had planned to hold onto the hostages for as long as a decade to pressure Israel, and repeatedly shifted demands to prevent negotiations from succeeding.

The terrorists also viewed weekly mass rallies in Israel for the hostages as a “significant tool” in their strategy, he said.

“Every Saturday afternoon, a Hamas video clip came out with slogans that came out of here [Israel] – ‘Time is running out,’ ‘They won’t came back except in a deal’ – and called for people to come out to demonstrations,” which they knew took place on Saturday nights, Hirsch said.

Hamas also pressured captives to echo those messages in propaganda videos, he said, because the protests were so important to them.

The post Former hostage chief: Rescue missions were called off to avoid risking captives appeared first on World Israel News.

Early in the war, concerns were raised that leaders such as Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif might be untouchable if they alone possessed certain knowledge about captives.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

The IDF at times chose not to target specific Gazan terrorists because they were believed to hold critical information about the locations of Israeli hostages, a senior Intelligence Corps commander disclosed Thursday.

The officer described the decision as part of an ongoing operational tension between eliminating threats and preserving intelligence value tied to hostage recovery. “There is always a dual dilemma” about whether to “let security forces kill terrorists to remove a threat” or refrain in order to maintain access to information that could aid rescue efforts, he told the Jerusalem Post.

The revelation sheds light on how Israel was able to pursue senior Hamas figures while still preserving channels that could lead to hostage intelligence.

Early in the war, concerns were raised that leaders such as Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif might be untouchable if they alone possessed certain knowledge about captives.

Regarding Ran Gvili, the commander said Hamas did not know his location. “Hamas never knew where he was,” he said. “Islamic Jihad did not even know.”

Intelligence teams explored multiple scenarios, including the possibility that Gvili had been mistakenly buried among Gazans in October 2023.

Identifying specific areas in eastern Gaza City required extensive analysis supported by Shin Bet interrogations.

“I didn’t think we would get all of the hostages back,” the officer said, crediting more than 2,000 personnel at the hostage center for the eventual recovery.

He said new intelligence received about a month before the operation, and additional details days before it, significantly improved the likelihood of success.

He added that the Islamic Jihad figure questioned by Shin Bet was not the person who originally transported Gvili’s body into Gaza but someone who later received it.

The Mossad, he said, focused mainly on negotiations but also contributed to operational efforts.

The commander noted that locating living hostages required different methods than recovering remains, with separate units dedicated to each task.

After fatal incidents in December 2023 and August 2024, the IDF revised training and tightened operational standards, requiring updated intelligence before entering areas where hostages might be present.

Within two weeks of the war’s start, uncertainty about the fate of 3,000 Israelis was narrowed to 200–300 cases, and by December 2024, the status of all missing persons was known, he said.

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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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“Kfir, I’m sorry I brought you into such a cruel world. I hope you know how much I love you and how much I miss you.”

By World Israel News Staff

Their image is seared into a nation’s heart. Shiri Bibas, a young mother, and her two redheaded boys, Ariel and Kfir, were torn from their home and from a life that should have been filled with safety, laughter, and ordinary childhood moments.

Today, January 18, marks what would have been the third birthday of Kfir Bibas, the youngest hostage taken on October 7. His father, Yarden Bibas, marked the day with a heartbreaking post on Instagram, remembering the brief milestones his baby managed to reach, and the ones he never got the chance to celebrate.

“Kfir, my beloved,” Yarden wrote, recalling how they had to evacuate their home during fighting in Gaza just months after Kfir was born. He remembered Kfir tasting solid food for the first time, starting to crawl, and being there to celebrate his older brother Ariel’s birthday.

“You didn’t get to celebrate your first birthday, so how can I mark your third?” he wrote. “Kfir, I’m sorry I brought you into such a cruel world. I hope you know how much I love you and how much I miss you.”

Yarden added that he imagines Kfir’s mother and brother celebrating him in heaven. “I’m sure Mom, Ariel and Tony are celebrating you in paradise,” he wrote, picturing Shiri giving him “the best and happiest birthday possible, just like she knew how.”

He ended with words that captured a father’s love in its purest form: “I love you more than anything in the world, always.”

Yarden, his wife Shiri, 32, and their two young sons, Kfir and Ariel, who were 10 months old and four years old at the time, were taken from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz during Hamas’ October 7 onslaught, when 1,200 people were massacred and some 250 were taken hostage.

Yarden was wounded and taken captive, while his wife and children were abducted separately.

Footage of Shiri, visibly terrified and clutching her children as she was dragged away, became one of the most widely circulated and unforgettable images from that day.

Yarden was released in a hostage deal in early 2025. Several weeks later, the remains of the rest of his family were handed over and returned to Israel for burial.

Israeli intelligence and forensic findings later concluded that Ariel and Kfir’s terrorist captors brutally murdered them with their bare hands. Officials said their bodies were then mutilated in an attempt to support the false claim that they were killed in an airstrike.

Today, on what would have been Kfir Bibas’s third birthday, Yarden is left to carry a father’s love and a grief beyond words, marking a day that should have been filled with joy and laughter.

The post Yarden Bibas marks son’s birthday with heartbreaking message appeared first on World Israel News.

In captivity, Mor said his emotional state shifted over time, moving from cautious hope to resignation.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

After nearly two years in Hamas captivity, Eitan Mor has described the moments that led to his abduction from the Nova music festival, the violence he witnessed, and the psychological and physical toll of surviving underground in Gaza.

In an interview with Makor Rishon, Mor said he first realized the scale of the attack when armed Gazans flooded the area around the festival. “We saw a ton of Gazans coming in groups, with knives. ‘Non-combatants’ who decided to join the combat,” he said. Mor recounted urging others not to return toward the party grounds as fires burned and gunfire echoed nearby.

Mor said he and Rom Braslavski attempted to help victims they encountered while trying to escape.

“I told Rom Braslavski, who was also abducted, that I saw the bodies of girls and I wanted to evacuate them,” he said, describing how they carried the body of Shira Ayalon to a nearby alcove.

His final contact with Elyakim Libman, who would not survive the attack, came shortly afterward. “That was the last message that I got from him,” Mor said.

As they moved through the area, Mor said they encountered wounded people they could not save before being spotted by armed terrorists.

“Suddenly, three terrorists in vests approach us and yell at us in Arabic to stop,” he said. He described running under fire, with bullets passing close enough that he does not know how he survived.

Eventually, Mor said, civilians joined the pursuit. “Five people caught Rom and brought him down to the ground; two people got me,” he recalled. After briefly escaping, Mor said he was captured by a group that included children. “They had knives, saws, and hammers. Everyone together beat me with everything they had,” he said. Faced with a choice, Mor agreed to be taken into Gaza.

In captivity, Mor said his emotional state shifted over time, moving from cautious hope to resignation. He said accepting the possibility that he might never return helped him endure day to day, focusing only on survival rather than the future.

“I understood that the best thing to make things easier was to just accept that I would die in Gaza. I would either die or return after many years. This acceptance helped me live the moment,” he said.

Starvation, he said, became all-consuming. “You tell yourself, ‘Think about your family,’ but your brain only thinks about food,” Mor said. Despite losing 15 kilograms, he described nightly rituals of gratitude. “Even though it’s bad and I’m hungry… I said thank you every day for what there is,” he said, adding that remembering the wounded and bereaved gave him perspective.

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Kupershtein said the inconvenience of filing a police report was insignificant compared with the ordeal he endured in Gaza.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Bar Kupershtein, who survived Hamas captivity, reported Sunday that his car had been broken into during the night, saying the intruder shattered a window and made off with his phone. He described discovering the damage early in the morning and recalled thinking, “They broke the window and stole my phone. And you know what? Everything’s fine, thank God.”

Kupershtein told followers he was choosing to focus on perspective rather than frustration. He said the inconvenience of filing a police report was insignificant compared with the ordeal he endured in Gaza. In his words, he prefers to “look at the glass half full,” and is grateful that his day involves routine matters rather than being trapped underground and worrying about food. He said that while the situation was unpleasant, he still regarded it as “more interesting” than the circumstances he faced during captivity, adding again, “Thank God.”

A short time later, he posted an update saying he had located the phone through its tracking feature and found that it appeared to be in Petah Tikva. “I’m coming, thief,” he wrote, signaling he intended to pursue the matter.

Kupershtein, upon his release, reported having been beaten severely and starved during his captivity.

His mother, Julie, reported how despite his suffering, her son fixed electricity, dug a waste pit and a water channel, and prepared areas where hostages could rest.

Like many other captives, Kupershtein credited religious practice and faith for giving him strength while under the control of Hamas in Gaza. Once, when he was supposed to have been in a house that was blown up, Kupershtein expressed his gratitude by mentally pledging to donate 200 shekels to charity upon his release.

The post ‘Everything’s fine…I’m coming, thief” – Freed hostage Bar Kupershtein reports stolen car appeared first on World Israel News.

Only one slain hostage is left in Gaza, Master Sgt. Ran Gvili of the police counter-terror unit.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The body of slain hostage Sudthisak Rinthalak has been officially identified after the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) found it in the northern Gaza city of Beit Lahiya Wednesday and transferred it to Israel, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) announced Thursday morning.

“The Coordinator for Prisoners and Missing Persons, Brig. Gen. (res.) Gal Hirsch, informed Sudthisak’s family that arrangements for his return for burial in his homeland will be carried out in coordination with the Embassy of Thailand in Israel, and that the Government of Israel shares in the deep grief of the Rinthalak family, of the Thai people, and of all the families of the deceased hostages,” the PMO stated.

Rinthalak, 42, had been working in the orchards of Kibbutz Be’eri when PIJ and Hamas forces stormed the community on Oct. 7, 2023.

He was murdered along with 100 other residents and was one of the 32 hostages, both alive and dead, whom the invaders took into Gaza from the kibbutz.

Rinthalak’s family has been waiting more than two years for news of him, having only seen a video of him being kidnapped.

His brother, Thepporn, said in an interview with Army Radio that getting his remains back was “very important” to the family, “so at least we will have some part of Sudthisak.”

With tears in his eyes, Thepporn added, “I sent him to Israel. I gave him money so he could make the journey…. When you lose someone so close, you still worry for them, still want them to be at peace, even after they’re gone.”

His elderly father, Thong Ma, spoke of missing his son, saying that he prayed that Sudthisak would return “while I’m still alive.”

He had last spoken to Sudthisak two days before the massacre, when his son told him he wanted to come home for a visit.

There is now only one hostage remaining in Gaza, Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, who was killed while defending Kibbutz Alumim from Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7.

Gvili, a member of the police counter-terror Yasam unit, was on medical leave with a broken shoulder when the invasion began, but immediately put on his uniform to head 57 kilometers east to the Gaza envelope.

His father recounted last month to Ynet that when he asked his son, “Where do you think you’re going?” Gvili answered, “What do you think? Do you think that my friends will fight alone? I’m going to help them.”

He first rescued several partygoers among the thousands fleeing the Nova festival, the site where Hamas forces murdered more than 360 of their nearly 1,200 victims of the day.

He then led a seven-man team of Yasam fighters and an undercover officer who fought off a tide of Hamas forces at Alumim, preventing the terrorists from reaching the community.

Reacting on Facebook to the news of Rinthalak’s return, Gvili’s mother, Talik, wrote that her son was “the first to go out and the last to come back – we won’t stop until you return.”

The Tikva Forum of hostage families demanded, “For every day that Rani does not return home, Hamas must pay a price – a heavy price. We must not make peace with this, and we must not allow Hamas to torture us.”

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Yoni Asher’s wife and his 4½- and 2½-year-old daughters were ultimately freed in the first hostage deal.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Yoni Asher revealed Tuesday that he had received several ransom demands from Gazans for the release of his two young daughters after they and his wife were kidnapped from her mother’s home in Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7, 2023, along with 248 other victims from the Gaza envelope.

In a post on Facebook marking the second anniversary of their eventual release in the first hostage deal six weeks into the war triggered by the Hamas-led invasion, he showed a partial picture of “one of the ransom demands I received.”

According to the cut-off screenshot, the sender, “Ahmad Alnabulsi,” whose Facebook account’s photo showed an armed, uniformed terrorist in a Hamas tunnel, contacted him on Nov. 1, three weeks before the deal.

He asked Asher if he had “a wife and children who are detained” and claimed that “there are 10 to 15 detainees who will be released in the coming days, and all their families have paid to Hamas.”

“Do the right thing, my brother, and wait for the governments to save your family,” he urged, seemingly meaning that Asher should actually not wait for official action.

“It’s up to you, brother. I am ready to help if you agree to this.”

In an interview with Walla, Asher said that there had been more than one person who contacted him demanding money for his loved ones, and “I cooperated with the IDF’s cyber unit on all of them.”

“They were all taken very seriously,” he said. “One specific one was taken extremely seriously. And there was a weeklong email correspondence. In the end, they disproved it.”

Alnabulsi also claimed to have had influence in getting a child named “Yagil” back to his family, presumably for cash.

This was untrue, as 12-year-old Yagil Yaakov, also taken from Nir Oz, was freed a few days after the Ashers, during the weeklong deal at the end of November 2023 that saw 86 Israeli women and children exchanged for a cease-fire, about 240 female and underage Palestinian security prisoners, and tons of humanitarian aid.

As far as is known, none of the 251 hostages were freed in exchange for money.

The IDF did drop leaflets throughout the Gaza Strip after the war began that promised millions of shekels to anyone who would spirit out hostages, or even tip Israel off as to any of their whereabouts.

Asher had not gone with his wife, Doron, 4½- year-old Raz and 2½-year-old Aviv on their visit to Doron’s childhood home during the Sukkot holiday.

Doron called him from their safe room when terrorists penetrated the house, and he told her to hang up so they wouldn’t hear her voice.

After not hearing from her for several hours, Asher traced Doron’s phone to Khan Yunis, and then saw a video on Telegram showing terrorists loading his family onto a wagon, covering Doron’s hair, and taking them into Gaza.

The post Gazans demanded ransom for two of the youngest hostages, father reveals appeared first on World Israel News.

Talik Gvili expressed deep gratitude to the Israeli public for standing with her family as she fights for the return of her son’s body.

By World Israel News Staff

The mother of a deceased hostage whose body remains in the Gaza Strip said she hopes her son will soon be returned, expressing deep fear that he will become the next Hadar Goldin — the Israeli soldier whose body was held by Hamas for more than a decade before finally being brought home.

Staff Sgt. Ran Gvili, 24, was killed in battle against invading Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023. His body was abducted to Gaza by the terror group after he fell while defending Kibbutz Alumim.

Gvili served in Yasam, a police special forces unit, and was among the first responders battling the terrorists who invaded the Gaza border communities.

Speaking with the Hebrew-language outlet Ynet, his mother, Talik, said she worries her son will become a “symbol” of victory for Hamas, similar to how the terror group repeatedly boasted about holding Goldin’s body for years.

She described her family’s ordeal as “surreal,” saying they hope the process to return Ran’s body “will be over as soon as possible,” as they struggle to cope with each day he remains in captivity.

Talik said she has met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu numerous times over the past two years, and she emphasized her gratitude to the people of Israel for supporting her family throughout their struggle to repatriate their son’s body.

“I need to give a huge thank you to the Israeli public, because it really feels like they are embracing us and are truly behind us — and that gives us so much strength,” she told Ynet.

Talik added that the family has been told that the location of Ran’s body is “more or less known,” but there are significant challenges preventing a rescue.

Under the terms of the Trump-brokered ceasefire agreement signed in October, Hamas is obligated to return the bodies of all hostages abducted on October 7.

The group still holds the bodies of three hostages — two Israelis and one Thai national — while repeatedly stalling, in what Israeli officials deem a blatant violation of the agreement.

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Keith and Aviva Siegel experienced starvation, sexual humiliation, and terror during their captivity.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Former hostages Keith and Aviva Siegel testified before the UN Committee Against Torture on Wednesday about the horrors they experienced and witnessed as captives in Hamas’ hands.

Speaking in Geneva as part of an Israeli delegation, Keith revealed information he had not publicized after his release in the second hostage deal in February, after 484 days of captivity.

He told of being starved, denied water, threatened with knives, prevented from using the bathroom, and sexually humiliated.

For “amusement,” he said, “Our captives compared my genitals to those of another hostage…. More than once young terrorists forced me to undress in front of them, and shaved my body.”

At one point, he was brought into a room where a female hostage was lying with her mouth taped and hands and feet bound, he said, to convince her to confess that she was an IDF officer.

“Two terrorists were beating her with a rod, as I was telling her to confess, knowing that she had nothing to confess to,” he said. “A third terrorist stood by her head, was holding a sharp rod, and pushed that sharp rod to her forehead, applying pressure,” while another “held a pistol to her head and told her that if she does not confess, he will kill her.”

He was held with his wife until her release in the first hostage deal 50 days into the war. At times he was held with others, but for six full months he was kept alone.

“I was moved 55 times,” he attested. “I was held in tunnels and schools and residential homes with children and with wives of terrorists.”

He described himself as having “every basic human right stripped from me” at age 66, “cut off from the world” and “terrified.”

“I’m not asking for your mercy,” Keith stated. “I’m asking you to ensure the horrors the terrorists committed against me and others in captivity never happen again.”

In her testimony, Aviva said in part, “For 51 days, I was certain I’d die any moment. They threatened me, starved me, gave me insufficient water. I lost 10 kilograms (22 pounds) in 51 days.”

She was forced to drink contaminated water that gave her stomach pains and diarrhea, and to lie still from 5 p.m. to 9 a.m., with terrorists threatening to kill anyone who moved.

She described the sexual assaults that terrified young female captives told her about, such as Hamas captors who touched them all over their bodies or stood staring at them while they showered.

“Another young woman [was] taken by a terrorist to the shower, told to undress, and forced to perform oral sex on him and smile afterward,” she said.

After they spoke, Justice Ministry Director General Itamar Donenfeld told the committee, “The testimonies we heard here today aren’t just personal stories – they’re a moral and legal indictment against the world’s silence.”

“The international community’s silence facing torture, kidnappings, and abuse violates the very spirit of the Convention [for the Prevention of Torture]. The Convention mustn’t remain just a document – it must be a moral compass demanding action.”

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Matan Zangauker said that after he was abducted to the Gaza Strip, “children, women, and old people” attacked him with pipes and rocks.

By World Israel News Staff

Former hostage Matan Zangauker, who survived nearly two years in Hamas captivity before being freed in the October 2025 ceasefire and hostage deal, spoke to Israel’s Channel 12 News on Monday evening about his ordeal.

In his interview after being released, he emphasized that the brutality he experienced came not only from Hamas terrorists, but from ordinary Gazan civilians.

Zangauker recalled that immediately after he was abducted to Gaza, civilians eagerly joined in torturing him.

As he was dragged through the streets, he said that “children, women, old people, lined up with sticks, with rocks, with pipes, and they started to hit me, to beat me.”

He described a scene in which everyday Gazans, who presumably had no direct affiliation with Hamas, appeared thrilled to assault a kidnapped Israeli.

Soon after, Zangauker was taken into an underground tunnel. There, he saw the body of an IDF soldier who had been kidnapped during the invasion. His captors warned him that he would “end up like” the murdered soldier.

Throughout nearly two years of captivity, Zangauker endured continuous psychological and physical abuse. He was frequently tied up, denied food for long stretches, and forced to watch his captors cook and eat meals in front of him.

He said he and other hostages were repeatedly told that “if the IDF tried to rescue us, they would just shoot us, and we’d all die together.”

At one point, he was held above ground disguised as a Gazan civilian. As several potential hostage deals collapsed, Zanguaker lost hope that he would be returned to Israel. convinced that rescue or release

Zangauker described reaching a point of resignation, telling himself, “that this was it, that I would die here.”

When his captors finally told him he was being released, Zangauker didn’t believe them. He assumed it was yet another act of psychological torture.

Upon reuniting with his mother, sisters, and girlfriend on Israeli soil, Zangauker described the moment as being “pure ecstasy,” adding that he “was in total shock.”

A month later, he is still adjusting to freedom.

“There are moments that I really can’t comprehend that I’m here,” he said. “I have to pinch myself and I wake up and return to reality.”

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Those freed of Zaid Zaki Abd al-Hadi Akl’s grip expressed joy and relief over his death.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

One of the Hamas terrorists who led the psychological torture of Israeli hostages in the tunnels of Gaza was eliminated last week by the IDF, the army announced Wednesday.

Zaid Zaki Abd al-Hadi Akl had been nicknamed “The Troll” by the six hostages he was responsible for underground – Bar Kuperstein, Ohad Ben Ami, Maxim Herkin, Elkana Bohbot, Yosef Chaim Ohana and Segev Kalfon.

Kalfon described the man’s heinous actions in a post to social media after news broke of his assassination.

“The Troll was eliminated today. He wasn’t just ‘another terrorist,’ he was the gateway to hell,” Kalfon wrote.

“It was in his house that the shaft was where we were lowered into the tunnel — the place where our lives above ground ended, and we descended into an abyss that no person should ever know.”

“Holding us captive, he watched and encouraged the ‘Game of Life,’ [where] they would stand around us, count us, cock their Kalashnikovs, release the safety catch, and tell us to decide which three they’d kill,” he recalled.

“We’re all here today because of the grace of God,” he added. “There are those who will say, ‘He got what was coming to him,’ but we have to continue pursuing truth and justice. No bullet that eliminates a terrorist concludes a single story.”

Kuperstein reacted by saying, “This is it. They trolled the Troll today… Thank God, I got out of hell, and the Troll was sent straight to hell.”

“I’m glad to be home again, and a bit happier today that this evil person is not around anymore. With God’s help, the same will happen to all the evil ones.”

Yoseph Haddad, an Israeli Arab known for his vocal defense of Israel during the war and a proponent of harsh measures against all its enemies, echoed thousands of online users who applauded the targeted assassination when he posted on Facebook his delight that Akl was dead.

The hostages are free, but Akl “is in hell!” he wrote. “And he’s not the last. We’ll get to each one – every dog on his own day.”

The IDF said that it had eliminated Akl “in a joint operation with the Israel Security Service, led by the Southern Command and through the air force on Oct. 29,” showing grainy footage of an airstrike on a target in Gaza.

The attack took place as part of “a series of significant strikes” on Hamas targets throughout the Strip, the army said, the day after terrorists shot and killed Master Sgt. (res.) Yona Efraim Feldbaum, while he was operating a bulldozer in Rafah.

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“We are begging for a meeting” with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, says sister of fallen soldier held by Hamas since 2014.

By World Israel News Staff

Family members of the eight deceased hostages whose bodies are still being held by Hamas in Gaza held a press conference Monday night, demanding an urgent meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss efforts to repatriate the remains of their loved ones.

Their call comes amid repeated violations of the ceasefire by Hamas, as the terror group is refusing to return the bodies.

“Hamas knows where our loved ones are. We should pressure Hamas; we are counting on the prime minister. We want to see the Israeli prime minister standing up and declaring: I am returning the last of the hostages, I am using every means at my disposal, and I am returning them all,” said Ayelet Goldin.

Her brother, Hadar, fell in battle in the Gaza Strip in 2014. His body has been held by Hamas for more than a decade.

Goldin said the families are “demanding that the prime minister look us in the eye, [and] meet us… After three weeks [of ceasefire] we are begging for a meeting.”

Elad Or, whose brother Dror was murdered by Hamas and kidnapped to Gaza on Oct. 7, told The Times of Israel that he fears the ceasefire may fail before the bodies are returned.

Or’s wife, Yonat, was also killed during the Oct. 7 onslaught. Their two children and nephew were kidnapped to Gaza but later returned in a November 2023 hostage exchange.

“Some members of the government call for a return to the war, and all the hairs on my body stand up when I hear that,” Or said.

“So our call is not to go back to fight in Gaza, but to fulfill the ceasefire. We’re fearful about the ceasefire not being fulfilled, but we also see that things are progressing.”

He added, “If this deal breaks, then we’ll be like Hadar Goldin.”

Since the Trump-brokered ceasefire agreement was established last month, Hamas has violated the terms of the deal numerous times.

Israeli officials say Hamas has dragged its feet on returning the deceased hostages, even staging an elaborate deception which saw them faking the discovery of a body and then handed over the remains to the Red Cross.

DNA testing later revealed that the remains belonged to a hostage already returned to Israel in late 2023.

Israeli intelligence officials say Hamas is using the bodies as “bargaining chips” to gain leverage and could return most of them in one fell swoop, if it chose to do so.

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