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In Harrowing Account, Israeli Ex-Hostage Describes Abuse, Starvation, Witnessing Execution of Fellow Captive
Israel former hostage Eliya Cohen recounting his experience in Hamas captivity in Gaza. Photo: Screenshot
Israeli former hostage Eliya Cohen, who was abducted by Hamas terrorists at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023, said in an interview this week that his 505 days in captivity in Gaza were marked by near-starvation and physical and psychological torment.
Among the most traumatic moments for Cohen was witnessing the execution of a fellow captive and being stripped naked on a weekly basis only to be told he “wasn’t thin enough.”
Cohen’s account, relayed to Israel’s Channel 12 news on Tuesday, was one of the most chilling testimonies to date.
Cohen and his fiancée, Ziv, had fled the Nova festival in southern Israel and taken refuge in a roadside bomb shelter. The shelter, which would later be referred to as the “bunker of death,” was attacked by terrorists who threw grenades inside. Another person hiding in the bunker, Aner Shapira, hurled grenade after grenade back outside. But the eighth exploded, killing Shapira and the others.
“I jumped on Ziv … and the first thing that came out of my mouth was: ‘Ziv, I love you,’” Cohen recalled.
Cohen and Ziv survived the blast, but they were soon captured. On the way to Gaza, one of the captives in the truck announced his intention to escape. Cohen said he and the others tried to convince him to change his mind. “We told him not to. But he jumped off the truck, and they stopped driving and shot him dead,” he said.
When they arrived in Gaza, Cohen was taken to a house where a man claiming to be a medic approached him. “He said he’d remove the bullet from my leg,” Cohen recalled. He denied Cohen’s request for painkillers, instead, shoving a cloth into the hostage’s mouth and warning him not to scream, fearing that the noise might attract attention from civilians outside. The medic then used tweezers to extract the bullet. “It was completely agonizing,” Cohen recalled.
Cohen, who returned home severely malnourished, left behind another captive, Alon Ohel. Ohel’s fate became clear when Cohen, after being told of his own release, was informed that Ohel would not be joining him. “Alon panicked and started crying,” Cohen recalled in an interview. Cohen offered to switch places, but his captors refused. “I truly thought the second stage would come in a matter of days,” Cohen said about the Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal. “He’s blind in one eye.”
Cohen’s departure was bittersweet. He recalled their last moment together, saying, “I told him, ‘Don’t forget your family. They’re the most important thing in the world.’” Cohen made a promise to Ohel: “I wouldn’t forget him. Until I see him back home, this isn’t over.” Even after his release, Cohen said he is haunted by Ohel’s absence.
“Until I see him back home, this isn’t over,” Cohen said.
The conditions in captivity were deplorable, and starvation was a daily reality for Cohen and the others. For most of their imprisonment, food was scarce, rationed to barely enough to survive. Cohen described a daily struggle for sustenance: “We fought for survival. We got one pita a day with two spoonfuls of fava beans, peas, or something similar.” Many times, they were given less food than promised, and the captors showed little remorse, telling the hostages to “share it among yourselves.”
“We fought for survival,” Cohen said. “You’d think twice before going to the bathroom because just standing up made you dizzy.”
Twice a week, they were ordered to take off all their clothes. Their captors would taunt, “You’re not thin enough, time to cut your food rations.”
Hunger was a constant struggle, he said, and the captors seemed to take pleasure in their suffering. “We’d beg for extra food, and sometimes it worked,” Cohen said. “There’s no way to describe the feeling when we managed to touch their hearts, and they’d give us a small chocolate bar to share between the four of us.”
Cohen and the others were kept in chains for two months at a time, often so tightly that the restraints cut into their skin. “They bound them so tightly they cut into my legs,” Cohen explained. “I felt like a caged animal in some dark, remote place.” At the end of the two months, he was allowed to shower, after which he preferred to rechain himself rather than face the increased discomfort from their captors tightening the chains even further.
Nevertheless, Cohen said that the food deprivation was the worst of it.
“You can handle being humiliated, you can handle being cursed at, you can handle your legs being in chains,” he said. “But hunger is a daily struggle because, beyond being hungry, you are also fighting for your life. Every night, you go to sleep thinking, ‘What am I going to do tomorrow to get that piece of pita bread?’”
Among those Cohen and Ohel were held with were Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Almog Sarusi, and Ori Danino. Cohen later learned that they were executed by Hamas after a failed rescue attempt by the Israel Defense Forces.
The post In Harrowing Account, Israeli Ex-Hostage Describes Abuse, Starvation, Witnessing Execution of Fellow Captive first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Security Warning to Israelis Vacationing Abroad Ahead of holidays
A passenger arrives to a terminal at Ben Gurion international airport before Israel bans international flights, January 25, 2021. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – Ahead of the Jewish High Holidays, Israel’s National Security Council (NSC) published the latest threat assessment to Israelis abroad from terrorist groups to the public on Sunday, in order to increase the Israeli public’s awareness of the existing terrorist threats around the world and encourage individuals to take preventive action accordingly.
The NSC specified that the warning is an up-to-date reflection of the main trends in the activities of terrorist groups around the world and their impact on the level of threat posed to Israelis abroad during these times, but the travel warnings and restrictions themselves are not new.
“As the Gaza war continues and in parallel with the increasing threat of terrorism, the National Security Headquarters stated it has recognized a trend of worsening and increasing violent antisemitic incidents and escalating steps by anti-Israel groups, to the point of physically harming Israelis and Jews abroad. This is in light of, among other things, the anti-Israel narrative and the negative media campaign by pro-Palestinian elements — a trend that may encourage and motivate extremist elements to carry out terrorist activities against Israelis or Jews abroad,” the statement read.
“Therefore, the National Security Bureau is reinforcing its recommendation to the Israeli public to act with responsibility during this time when traveling abroad, to check the status of the National Security Bureau’s travel warnings (before purchasing tickets to the destination,) and to act in accordance with the travel warning recommendations and the level of risk in the country they are visiting,” it listed, adding that, as illustrated in the past year, these warnings are well-founded and reflect a tangible and valid threat potential.
The statement also emphasized the risk of sharing content on social media networks indicating current or past service in the Israeli security forces, as these posts increase the risk of being marked by various parties as a target. “Therefore, the National Security Council recommends that you do not upload to social networks, in any way, content that indicates service in the security forces, operational activity, or similar content, as well as real-time locations.”
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Israel Intensifies Gaza City Bombing as Rubio Arrives
Displaced Palestinians, fleeing northern Gaza due to an Israeli military operation, move southward after Israeli forces ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate to the south, in the central Gaza Strip September 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Israeli forces destroyed at least 30 residential buildings in Gaza City and forced thousands of people from their homes, Palestinian officials said, as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived on Sunday to discuss the future of the conflict.
Israel has said it plans to seize the city, where about a million Palestinians have been sheltering, as part of its declared aim of eliminating the terrorist group Hamas, and has intensified attacks on what it has called Hamas’ last bastion.
The group’s political leadership, which has engaged in on-and-off negotiations on a possible ceasefire and hostage release deal, was targeted by Israel in an airstrike in Doha on Tuesday in an attack that drew widespread condemnation.
Qatar will host an emergency Arab-Islamic summit on Monday to discuss the next moves. Rubio said Washington wanted to talk about how to free the 48 hostages – of whom 20 are believed to be still alive – still held by Hamas in Gaza and rebuild the coastal strip.
“What’s happened, has happened,” he said. “We’re gonna meet with them (the Israeli leadership). We’re gonna talk about what the future holds,” Rubio said before heading to Israel where he will stay until Tuesday.
ABRAHAM ACCORDS AT RISK
He was expected to visit the Western Wall Jewish prayer site in Jerusalem on Sunday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and hold talks with him during the visit.
US officials described Tuesday’s strike on the territory of a close US ally as a unilateral escalation that did not serve American or Israeli interests. Rubio and US President Donald Trump both met Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani on Friday.
Netanyahu signed an agreement on Thursday to push ahead with a settlement expansion plan that would cut across West Bank land that the Palestinians seek for a state – a move the United Arab Emirates warned would undermine the US-brokered Abraham accords that normalized UAE relations with Israel.
Israel, which blocked all food from entering Gaza for 11 weeks earlier this year, has been allowing more aid into the enclave since late July to prevent further food shortages, though the United Nations says far more is needed.
It says it wants civilians to leave Gaza City before it sends more ground forces in. Tens of thousands of people are estimated to have left but hundreds of thousands remain in the area. Hamas has called on people not to leave.
Israeli army forces have been operating inside at least four eastern suburbs for weeks, turning most of at least three of them into wastelands. It is closing in on the center and the western areas of the territory, where most of the displaced people are taking shelter.
Many are reluctant to leave, saying there is not enough space or safety in the south, where Israel has told them to go to what it has designated as a humanitarian zone.
Some say they cannot afford to leave while others say they were hoping the Arab leaders meeting on Monday in Qatar would pressure Israel to scrap its planned offensive.
“The bombardment intensified everywhere and we took down the tents, more than twenty families, we do not know where to go,” said Musbah Al-Kafarna, displaced in Gaza City.
Israel said it had completed five waves of air strikes on Gaza City over the past week, targeting more than 500 sites, including Hamas reconnaissance and sniper sites, buildings containing tunnel openings and weapons depots.
Local officials, who do not distinguish between militant and civilian casualties, say at least 40 people were killed by Israeli fire across the enclave, a least 28 in Gaza City alone.
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Turkey Warns of Escalation as Israel Expands Strikes Beyond Gaza
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a press conference with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (not seen) at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, May 13, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
i24 News – An Israeli strike targeting Hamas officials in Qatar has sparked unease among several Middle Eastern countries that host leaders of the group, with Turkey among the most alarmed.
Officials in Ankara are increasingly worried about how far Israel might go in pursuing those it holds responsible for the October 7 attacks.
Israel’s prime minister effectively acknowledged that the Qatar operation failed to eliminate the Hamas leadership, while stressing the broader point the strike was meant to make: “They enjoy no immunity,” the government said.
On X, Prime Minister Netanyahu went further, writing that “the elimination of Hamas leaders would put an end to the war.”
A senior Turkish official, speaking on condition of anonymity, summed up Ankara’s reaction: “The attack in Qatar showed that the Israeli government is ready to do anything.”
Legally and diplomatically, Turkey occupies a delicate position. As a NATO member, any military operation or targeted killing on its soil could inflame tensions within the alliance and challenge mutual security commitments.
Analysts caution, however, that Israel could opt for covert measures, operations carried out without public acknowledgement, a prospect that has increased anxiety in governments across the region.
Israeli officials remain defiant. In an interview with Ynet, Minister Ze’ev Elkin said: “As long as we have not stopped them, we will pursue them everywhere in the world and settle our accounts with them.” The episode underscores growing fears that efforts to hunt Hamas figures beyond Gaza could widen regional friction and complicate diplomatic relationships.