“When he cried, they threatened him with a weapon
,” says Bat-Sheva Yahalomi, recounting the bullying and psychological torture that his 12-year-old son, Eitan, says he endured during his 52 days of captivity in Gaza. In a telephone interview given to AFP, her first interview with an international media since the release of her son, this Franco-Israeli whose husband Ohad is still hostage, wants to testify to the “
horror”
that her boy is experiencing. in Gaza. Eitan was kidnapped on October 7 with his mother and two sisters, aged 10 and 2, from their home on Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel, but Ms. Yahalomi and her daughters managed to escape, favor of a fall from their captor's motorcycle.
The boy found himself in the Gaza Strip like more than 250 people captured that day.
“He was beaten when he arrived, then they put him alone in a cell with bars and he remained alone for 16 days under the guard of armed men from the (Palestinian Islamist movement) Hamas
,” said his mother. . When he was released 52 days later, as part of a truce agreement that saw the release of more than a hundred people, the majority women and children, Eitan recounted his experience to his mother. Around 250 people were kidnapped during the Hamas attack which left more than 1,160 dead on the Israeli side, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.
According to Israeli authorities, 130 hostages from October 7 remain in Gaza, of whom at least 34 are dead. In retaliation, Israel launched a vast military offensive on the Gaza Strip which left 32,552 people dead, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas government's Health Ministry. The destruction is enormous and the north of the territory is threatened by famine.
“He told me everything
,” said Ms. Yahalomi, still overwhelmed by her son’s chilling testimony.
Isolation and psychological torture
“He slept on the floor and was hungry all the time, he received a pita and a cucumber a day
,” she remembers her son’s confidences.
“They forced him to watch films that they said they had filmed on October 7, and when he cried, they threatened him with a weapon,”
she said, without wanting to go into detail about the
“atrocious”
images his son says he was exposed. Placed under constant surveillance by men, isolated, he knew nothing of the fate of his family. His captors told him contradictory stories, plunging the child into
“terrible uncertainty”
. After 16 days, adds Ms. Yahalomi, he was taken to a hospital and locked in a small room with ten other hostages including five children, as testified after his release by a woman who had been detained with him. According to the Israeli army, this group of hostages was held at the Nasser hospital in Khan Younes, in the south of the Gaza Strip.
“He showered twice in 52 days and did not sleep once on a bed or mattress
,” says his mother. At the Nasser hospital, he was finally able to share his fears with the other hostages, but without learning anything about the fate of his loved ones. Since his return, he talks all the time about his captivity, sleeps with his mother and has not managed to return to a normal life.
“He has nightmares all the time, he is strong but he is not doing well... Eitan is still in October 7
,” confides Ms. Yahalomi. The child celebrated his bar mitzvah (coming-of-age ceremony at 13 in Judaism) last week, with his family but
“without festivities”
and especially without his father.
“The children ask me questions about their father, but I have no answers
,” says Ms. Yahalomi, who still hopes for her husband's return. She last saw him on October 7, injured, in front of their house.