Shlomi Ziv and Almog Meir Jan, two of the hostages rescued from Gaza in Operation Arnon, have opened up for the first time about their harrowing ordeal in captivity.

They were interviewed as part of the Government Press Office’s national documentation project.

Andrey Kozlov, who was held together with Ziv and Jan, has spoken to numerous media outlets, (including the GPO’s project earlier this month) about the physical and emotional abuse he and his fellow captives endured. Their hands and feet were bound for the first two months, they were locked in the bathroom buried under blankets in the summer heat, and were told time and time again that Israel and their loved ones had abandoned them. Recently, he described more harrowing scenes in which his captors forced him to use the bathroom with bound hands while laughing at him.

Jan said that their main captor was particularly cruel: “Let’s just say he had an issue with us moving around. If he caught one of us standing, he’d say suddenly: ‘Oh, you stood up? Fine. Now I want you sitting for a week. If you need the bathroom – crawl. I don’t want to see you on your feet.'”

Ziv said: “But we’d wear him down after about four days. We did our best to comply. We’d win him over by playing the role of obedient children.”

Almog added: “We were itching to retaliate, but we suppressed it, detaching ourselves emotionally.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)