The four Israeli hostages who were rescued yesterday, Saturday, shared some details about their experience of being kidnapped and held by Hamas militants in Gaza for the past eight months. The newspaper "Yedioth Ahronoth" reported that the hostages informed medical teams that during their captivity, they were subjected to what they described as "brainwashing and emotional abuse," as Hamas militants forced them to read the Quran and study Islamic laws.
The rescued hostages are Noya Argamani (25 years old), Almog Meir (21 years old), Andrey Kuzlov (27 years old), and Shlomi Zeif (40 years old).
According to Channel 13, Noya Argamani told her family that she was held with Yossi Sharabi and Itay Svirski, who were killed while in Hamas custody. The Israeli army later confirmed that Sharabi likely died during an airstrike on a building near where he was held, and Svirski was killed a few days later.
Argamani recounted: "I saw the rocket hit the house, I thought I was going to die. I thought it was the end for me - but I survived." She revealed that she was "moved between several apartments and was not held in tunnels. Occasionally, she was allowed to go out disguised in an Arab woman’s attire, and she rarely had the chance to bathe."
Argamani was rescued Saturday morning in an operation carried out by Israeli forces in the heart of Nusairat in central Gaza. She was held in an apartment on the first floor of a building, just a few hundred meters from where the other three hostages, Shlomi Zeif, Almog Meir, and Andrey Kuzlov, were held.
She told her family that she heard loud knocks that morning: "Suddenly, they told her it was the Israeli army, and they came to rescue her… she was in shock," according to her relative Asaf Shahabi, at Sheba Medical Center outside Tel Aviv, where all four hostages were taken.
In conversations with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, she said, "I am very excited... I haven't spoken Hebrew for a long time."
Meanwhile, a relative of Almog Meir told Yedioth Ahronoth that a few weeks ago, when he celebrated his birthday while in captivity, Hamas militants filmed him and said they would send the video to Israel. However, Hamas never released the video, and it was not circulated in Israel, according to the Israeli newspaper. The relative added that during the dramatic rescue operation, Almog was asleep and does not remember all the details.
For his part, Andrey Kuzlov shared some of his experiences during captivity in a meeting with Netanyahu. According to Netanyahu, Kuzlov, who immigrated from Russia, kept a diary. "Andrey told me he had a notebook in captivity and wrote one line each day: 'Every day is a gift. Every day - podarok (in Russian), a gift,'" Netanyahu said.
Later, Kuzlov spoke with President Isaac Herzog over the phone and revealed that he had learned Hebrew during his captivity. Kuzlov, who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival where he worked as a security guard a year after immigrating to Israel alone, said, "I started learning Hebrew exactly a year ago, so I practiced a lot with my fellow captives." According to the Israeli army, the four hostages were held in civilian areas in buildings with three to four floors.
