A freed Israeli hostage has revealed chilling new details about his captivity in Gaza, saying his Hamas captors filmed a staged propaganda video in which they made it appear that he and another hostage were attempting to kill themselves.

“They drew blood from our hands and beat us so that we would be injured, to simulate a suicide scene,” Elkana Bohbot said in an interview published Monday with Yediot Acharonot. Bohbot did not name the other hostage filmed with him, and the video he described was never released publicly.

Bohbot, 34, was abducted by Hamas during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on the Nova music festival and held for just over two years before being freed during the first days of a ceasefire in October. Since his release, he has spoken openly about severe abuse in captivity, including being chained in an underground tunnel for most of his imprisonment.

“They told me that my mother died and that my wife had left me,” Bohbot said, describing deliberate efforts to break him psychologically.

He also disclosed that he and other hostages tried to escape during their first week in Gaza. “The plan was that we would overpower the terrorists while they were praying, draw a Star of David on a white sheet, go up to the roof and try to signal the helicopter with a flashlight,” he said. The plan collapsed when the captives were moved from an apartment to a tunnel. “Underground, there is no way out.”

Life in the tunnels, Bohbot said, stripped prisoners of their humanity. “There is no difference between you and a dead person; both of you are buried without air, with the worms,” he said. “The only difference is that your heart is beating. Besides that, you are a corpse.”

While the physical suffering was extreme, Bohbot said the psychological toll was worse, particularly in the final months. “The last six months were the hardest, since they starved us,” he said.

He described being barefoot, beaten and humiliated, and said his captors forced him to watch Hamas propaganda videos showing Israeli soldiers being killed whenever he asked for food. “They play with you,” he said. “It’s sickening.”

Bohbot also recounted the moment of his kidnapping during the Nova festival massacre, which he called a “hunting trip.” About 360 civilians were killed in the attack, and dozens were abducted.

“Suddenly, 70 terrorists were all around us,” he said. “They were breaking windows of vehicles, verifying their kills. Human animals, shooting dead people.”

He said he feared being lynched by civilians once taken into Gaza. “I talked to God,” Bohbot recalled. “I said: Free me from this suffering, give me a bullet in the head — just don’t let them lynch me.”

Two months after his release, Bohbot said normal life remains elusive. “I live from hour to hour. I have no routine,” he said. Reuniting with his five-year-old son, Re’em, has been particularly difficult after two years of absence. “It’s a process, and it will be a long one.”

His family continues to face hardship, he added, including his mother’s illness. Still, Bohbot said his hopes are simple. “I want to bring Re’em a brother or sister, and for them to have a safe home here in Israel to sleep in,” he said. “That’s all we want.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)