The hostages released on Shabbos revealed disturbing details about their captivity, including the conditions of male hostages still being held in Gazan tunnels in inhumane conditions.

As YWN reported on Sunday, the family of hostage Alon Ohel received a first sign of life from the released hostages. The family of hostage Eliya Cohen, 27, who is due to be released in the current hostage, said that they also received a first sign of life from Cohen. Like Alon, Eliya has been held in chains his entire captivity in a dark tunnel, enduring intentional starvation, brutal abuse, and a total lack of basic human needs. And like Ohel, who was injured on October 7 and didn’t receive medical treatment, Eliya’s mother said that he was shot in the leg on October 7 but never received medical treatment.

Sigi Cohen, Eliya’s mother, told Israeli media outlets that released hostages Or Levy and Eli Sharabi reported that her son was held with them in tunnels, adding that she was extremely distressed by the details she was told and the released hostage’s appearances, which show they “went through a Holocaust.”

“Eliya has been chained for a year and four months and his captors stand over him with drawn weapons,” Sigi cried. “I hoped he would return safely but after Motzei Shabbos when I saw the horrors they went through there, I can’t sleep at night. My stomach is in knots, I am utterly devastated.”

“How can we talk about returning to war? Bring them home already. They are not okay, they are in hell, they’re in a genocide. Has someone in the government caught on that my son is chained? Where have we ever heard such a thing?”

“They’re abusing them now as well. They said they were abused recently,” Sigi added, lamenting that there are 22 young men in captivity who aren’t slated for release in the current phase “and who aren’t being talked about.” She called for the release of all the hostages, “no matter the price.”

“If we thought we knew something it turned out we understood nothing,” she said. “The punch to the gut we received on Motzei Shabbos with all the joy of the sign of life we got – I never imagined how bad their situation really is.”

Eliya was abducted from what became known as the “bunker of death” at the Nova music festival together with Hersh Goldberg-Polin, H’yd, Or Levy, and Alon Ohel. In addition to the four who were abducted, 16 Israelis crowded in the small bunker were murdered, including Or Levy’s wife Einav, H’yd. Seven survived and were rescued from the shelter.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)