Yaron Or, the father of released hostage Avinatan, told Kan Bet that his son attempted to escape the tunnel he was being held in following a bombing over a year ago.

His captors grabbed him by his legs after his head was already outside the tunnel. He was beaten and put in a cell the width of a mattress and shorter than his height so that he couldn’t straighten his body, neither standing nor lying down. He was handcuffed to the bars of the cage 24/7.

Yaron added that in the period before that, Avinatan – who is almost 6.5 feet tall – was held in a slightly larger space, also behind bars.

“They didn’t starve him, but the food was meager,” he said. “He was very thin. Around him were all sorts of guards whose relatives were killed in IDF bombings, and I think it’s simply a neis that they didn’t hurt him except for once when he tried to escape.”

Yaron emphasized that throughout his captivity, his son was held alone in the tunnels, without other hostages and “without books and without anything. At some point, he received a Rubik’s Cube. Apart from that, he had nothing. I don’t know how he came out of it sane. It’s a miracle.”

“Avinatan wasn’t aware of the extent of the October 7 massacre, only that they crossed into Israel. He told the prime minister that he thought he would remain in captivity for years, that they wouldn’t release him until the war was over, and that’s what should be done. He is a very special guy.”

“Physically, he needs to recover, but mentally, baruch Hashem, it’s the same Avinatan, the same sense of humor, the same strength. At least for now, it seems that in this regard he has not only not changed but has even become stronger.”

Avinatan’s mother, Ditza, talked to Yisrael Hayom about reuniting with Avinatan: “There are no words; it’s crazy. It’s much, much beyond what you can imagine. It’s imagining the most—and then multiplying it by thousands. It’s explosions of so many layers of depth.”

“He’s amazing. Physically, he’s really weak; he’s very thin. The food he received messed him up. There is a long protocol of medical tests that he needs to undergo. He is surrounded by family and friends, and he sleeps very little. However, he is handsome and gentle, with deep, beautiful, and warm eyes. He tries so hard to express his love and gratitude.”

“He hasn’t heard a word in Hebrew for two years. He already thinks in Arabic and then translates to Hebrew. He constantly blurts out words in Arabic. It’s amazing because there was an instruction that he was not allowed to be spoken to in any language, so only the very low ranks slipped him a few words on rare occasions.”

When was his escape attempt, and what happened?

“It was a year and a few months ago, when there was fighting in the area. There was a bombing—parts of the tunnel started to collapse, and there was chaos. So he took advantage of the fact that people were crammed together and started running and tried to escape. He was already halfway out; his head was already out of the tunnel, and then they grabbed his legs. The prime minister told him, “It’s good that you didn’t succeed, because reaching IDF forces in such conditions is very difficult.”

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)