A nurse who was among dozens of Israelis held captive in Gaza recounts that she spent her captivity in an underground tunnel, treating elderly hostages, some of whom suffered from impaired vision or hearing, using the meager medical supplies she had to negotiate with the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). Nili Margalit was returned to Israel as part of a truce agreement reached in November. In an interview with a local television channel, she stated that "Palestinian civilians kidnapped her from her village and 'sold' her to the Islamic militants who led the October 7 attack that sparked the war." She told Channel 12, "We were in a state of shock."
Using simple Arabic phrases she learned in the emergency room of a hospital in southern Israel that treats Bedouin patients, Margalit informed Hamas militants that she was a nurse. They agreed to her offer to take care of the medical needs of the hostages. She said, "The elderly were a concern for me... I asked them to mention their important medications for heart, blood pressure, and kidney diseases." Margalit wrote these names down in English for Hamas. After a few days, a black bag filled with pharmacy supplies arrived, but it proved to be insufficient as some prescriptions were mismatched.
"There were sick people. They had chronic illnesses. There weren't enough pills. There wasn't enough food," she said. Obtaining new supplies required regular negotiations with Hamas militants, including some she described as senior Palestinian officials who inspected the hostages and spoke Hebrew. She recounted, "I bothered them, and I did it somewhat gently," remembering how she warned the kidnappers that some hostages could die due to their illnesses. "That scared them. They didn't want those people to die."
