Released hostage can’t forget hellish experience in Hamas captivity

A released hostage has outlined her experience as she and three of her children spent 51 days in the hands of the Hamas gunmen who abducted them.

Chen Almog-Goldstein told the Reuters news agency she had to quickly stifle tears after watching her husband and her eldest daughter be shot and killed during the 7 October attack. 

“I had to wipe away the tears and snap out of it – they (the militants) didn’t like it when we cried,” she said.  

She explained that, quickly after witnessing the deaths of her husband and daughter, she and her three children were rushed across the border. 

“Within seven minutes we were in Gaza,” she said.

She explained the family spent their first and last nights in an underground tunnel before they were released in a November prisoner swap, seven weeks into the war. 

In between, they were moved several times from house to house, with new faces coming to guard them each time.

Food and water were sometimes restricted, she said, and sanitary conditions were poor. 

She also said that some hostages had been physically and sexually assaulted by their captors. 

In one of the hideouts the family was placed with a group of female captives.

“Some were beaten, handcuffed for some hours. 

“Not just men, women were beaten too and we heard of sexual abuse, some first hand and some were girls we met who had witnessed it or had heard about it, harm inflicted at gunpoint.”

“It is hell there,” she added. 

Hamas has denied accusations of sexual abuse.

Mrs Almog-Goldstein, now homeless after her kibbutz was ravaged by Hamas on that day, said despite her ordeal, she still has hope for the future. 

“We were always a happy home, with silliness and laughter, and we will always have that, but there will also be the loss, the sadness and the pain that we did not choose.”