After the relief, the concern dominates in view of the amaigris faces of Israeli hostages. On a giant screen this Saturday, February 8, Ohad Ben-Ami, Eli Sharabi and Or Levy walk supervised by men from the armed branch of Hamas to a platform. After 500 days of captivity, the silhouettes are emaciated and the features drawn. For the first time since the negotiated truce, released hostages arrive physically marked, their looks crossed by pain or a kind of absence. In the Israeli press, photos of them “before/after” have been looping since, as if to recall the urgency of freeing those still prisoners of the jails of the Palestinian Islamist movement.
A little later, we will learn that Ohad Ben Ami, a 56-year-old Israeli-German, is in a state of “nutritional distress”, according to the Ichilov hospital in Tel Aviv. “Ohad has lost a lot of body mass” but “his mind has spring and he is a source of inspiration,” wanted to reassure Prof. Gil Fire, deputy director of the hospital.
The state of health of the two other men released this weekend is “bad”, the authorities also said. According to the Israeli news channel N12Now Levy, 34, spent most of his captivity in Gaza in the tunnels of the terrorist group. “He only took a shower every two months and he stayed barefoot for 491 days, wearing shoes for the very first time this morning,” reports the Time of Israel, whose live is fueled by the painful testimonies of ex-hostages. Now Levy, considered by his jailers as a reservist soldier, was “subject to interrogations aimed at obtaining information on TSAhal”, completes the media I24. In the hands of Hamas, the 30 -year -old has lost about twenty kilos – even if the hostages have received more quantities of food in recent days, for their physical condition to improve before their release. As the N12 channel clarified, the captives sometimes only ate “a quarter of pita per day.”
Shalls of shells always in the body
In a long article of Wall Street Journal, Other doctors have described in recent days the heavy consequences of these fifteen months of captivity. For example, some of the Israeli women released by Hamas in the past two weeks have always had bursts of shells from unrealized injuries, suffered in the attack on October 7, 2023. “Seven women received Mediocre medical care during their captivity and are now faced with complex mental health problems, “Colonel Avi Benov, deputy chief of the Israeli military medical profession, added that some of them had spent eight months in the American daily newspaper. in tunnels. Among the consequences of their captivity, we also find malnutrition and metabolic problems.
If Colonel Avi Benov did not wish to provide information indicating whether hostages had suffered abuse or captivity torture, the Wall Street Journal reports that some of them have been victims of threats and sexual violence to various degrees. In December 2024, a report by the Israeli Ministry of Health already reported ill -treatment inflicted on hostages, evoking minors marked on the red iron or beaten and hungry men.
“The terrorists beat them, locked up in cages and mistreated”
Released on Saturday February 1 in the Gaza Strip, Yarden Bibas and Ofer Kalderon also told their ordeal. “During the first weeks, the terrorists beat them, locked up in cages and mistreated, both physically and mentally”, tells the Israeli public channel Kanresumed by our colleagues from International mail. The same chain also relates their perpetual displacement “from one place to another, underground and in buildings”.
Another hostage, Luis Har, 71, said that the treatment reserved for captives by their captors varied. “There have been a few moments of humanity, but not the majority. Most of them were either drugged or completely inhuman,” he said in an interview with Maariv, taken over in the Jerusalem Post. The one who benefited from a rescue by Israeli forces on February 12, 2024, described the challenges linked to the decrease in resources. “I cooked. At first it was easy: there was everything, canned, vegetables, cheese and they brought pita every day. But over time, food was exhausted. Finally, Fernando [un membre de sa famille] And I shared a pita per day, dividing it into pieces so as not to finish everything suddenly. “
The families of ex-hostages also tell the ordeal of their loved ones. On Wednesday, February 5, Meirav Leshem-Gonen, one of the figures in the fight for the liberation of Israeli hostages in Gaza, expressed herself on hell experienced by her daughter. Romi Gonen, 24, was one of the first three Israeli people released on January 19 by the Islamist movement Hamas, on the first day of the truce agreement with Israel. “She has almost never seen the sun, she was in danger of death,” said her mother in an interview with AFP, describing her emotion and fears at the time of reunion at the same time. Hungry by his kidnappers “who deprived her of food even when there were,” Romi lost ten kilos in captivity, according to his mother. This Saturday, President Isaac Herzog stressed that the state of the three released manifolds was “what a crime against humanity looks like”.