The parents of Liberated Hamas hostages give details of the test

The parents of four young Israeli hostages released from the captivity of Hamas in Gaza have told the BBC about how they were abused of their daughters, even being hungry, intimidated and threatened by armed men, and forced to cook and clean.

They reported how hostages were maintained in tunnels and underground buildings, they witnessed physical abuse and were made participating in Hamas propaganda videos, including, in a case, pretending their own death.

They said women found strength by sharing stories, drawing and maintaining a diary.

None of the women has given interviews with the media since its launch, and their parents say that the complete details of what they endured are still emerging. There are also things that cannot speak due to fears that it could put hostages that are still at risk.

Three of the four women whose parents spoke with the BBC were soldiers kidnapped by Hamas from the base of the Nahal Oz army near Gaza on October 7, 2023.

The access of the hostages to food and their treatment by the male guards varied during the 15 months that their parents said. They were transferred between places, they rarely saw sunlight.

“It was very different among the places she was: it could be a good tunnel, it could be a very bad tunnel. It could be a good house or a bad house,” said Agam Berger’s father, 20, a soldier that had been in Nahal Oz.

Some of the places had good food, some had “very bad food … they just tried to survive,” said Shlomi Berger.

“They (and their captors) had to flee from one place to another because they are in a war zone there. It was very dangerous to be there,” said Orly Gilboa, whose daughter Daniella was also kidnapped from the base.

When Daniella saw the Launch of three male hostages last week – Who left thin and emaciated, told his mother: “If I had been released two months ago, it would probably seemed to them.”

“He got thinner, lost a lot of weight through captivity. But in the last two months they were given a lot of food to gain weight,” says Gilboa.

Other parents have also reported significant weight loss. Meirav Leshem Gonen’s daughter was taken by Hamas from the Nova Music Festival.

Romi, 24, was released in the first week of Alto El Fuego in January: he had lost “20% of his body weight,” says his mother.

Mrs. Gilboa says that the most difficult thing she suffered was to watch a video that suggested that her daughter had been killed. Her captors poured dust on her, so she seemed to be covered with plaster, as if she was killed in an Israeli military strike.

“I think everyone who saw him believed him, but I kept telling myself that it couldn’t be,” he told the BBC.

The war was caused by the unprecedented attack of Hamas against Israel on October 7, 2023, when armed men killed some 1,200 people and took another 251 hostages.

More than 48,230 people have been killed in Gaza since, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health of the territory. Around two thirds of Gaza buildings have been destroyed or damaged, estimates that the UN.

Until now, 16 Israeli hostages and five Thai have been exchanged for more than 600 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel under the high fire agreement that began on January 19.

Berger says his daughter, Agam, was threatened by his captors and witnessed physical abuse while he was in captivity.

“Sometimes they tortured other female hostages in front of their eyes,” he says, specifically referring to an assault on Amyt Soussana, a former hostage that was thrown in November 2023.

Berger says his daughter told her how armed men constantly monitored them, “playing all the time with their weapons and hand grenades.”

He says that male captors treated women with “great disrespect,” including forcing them to clean and prepare food.

“That was really bothering her. She is a girl who has something to say, she will say it. She is not shy. And sometimes she told them what she was thinking about them and her behavior,” he says.

He adds that in a small act of resistance, Agam had refused to do any work on Saturday, the Jewish rest day. The men who arrested her accepted this.

Nor were they allowed to speak out loud.

“When Agam arrived (back to Israel) he wanted to talk all the time … after a day, he had no voice because he had spoken a lot,” says Berger.

Yoni Levy, whose daughter Naama, 20, was also taken from the base of the army, says that sometimes they celebrated it in places where a television or radio was played.

Once, Naama saw his father speaking on television. “He gave her a lot of hope and optimism … that nobody forgot her, and we will do whatever it is necessary to get her out of this hell.”

He says that for Naama, Hamas’s attack on the base of the army was “it was much more traumatic than captivity himself.”

“It can change, but at this stage we believe that this is the most tragic day he has spoken,” says Levy.

Naama’s images that day show her and others welded with blood stained clothes surrounded by armed men in a room at the base before being forced to a vehicle and taken to Gaza.

The three soldiers whose parents talked with the BBC are among five of a unarmed military unit in Nahal Oz released in the first round of Alto El Fuego.

The members of the unit, known in Hebrew as Tatzpitaniyot, have the task of observing the border of Gaza and looking for signs of something suspicious. The survivors and relatives of some of those killed that day say they had been warning for months that Hamas had been preparing for an attack.

A few days before the October 7 attack, Daniella had been at home at a service break. Then he had told his mother: “Mom, when he returns to the army, there will be a war.”

“I did not think it was a war and, of course, that my daughter would be taken as hostage,” says Gilboa.

Mrs. Gilboa and the families of the other two observers who spoke with the BBC say they are joining the calls for an investigation into what happened.

They say that their daughters are still concerned about the conditions of those that are still in Gaza and have asked the fire to continue.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Leshem Gonen says she is still learning what happened to her daughter Romi.

She was filmed in the Nova Music Festival and her mother says she was not treated properly, leaving her with “an open wound where he could see the bone.”

“This is something we can know and what she speaks. The other things, I think she will take time.”

Mrs. Leshem Gonen says that Romi described her launch in the first week of the truce as “intimidating” and “terrifying.” It was surrounded by gunmen and crowds. But the moment of his meeting was “so powerful.”

The parents also described how their daughters had found ways to overcome every day in captivity: draw, make notes or share stories with each other.

“They wrote everything they could, every day, what was happening, where they moved, that were the guards and things like that,” says Berger.

While they were in captivity, young women had dreamed of the things they wanted to do when they came home: cut their hair and eat sushi.

Daniella had drawn a butterfly with the word “freedom” while he was in captivity: now he has that tattooed in his arm.

They are adapting to life in Israel, and their families say they are recovering step by step.

The moment of meeting with his daughter Naama is still blurred, says Levy, but remembers the emotion.

“The feeling was that … now I will take care of you, and everything will be fine. Dad is here. That’s all. And then everything was calm.”

Naomi Scerbel-Ball Naomi Reports