Further details about the conditions the hostages were held in are being revealed as more hostages are released each day.

A doctor at Wolfson, Dr. Margarita Mashavi, said that one of the hostages, a nurse at Soroka Hospital, treated the wounds of the others. The hostages were beaten with sticks as they were abducted and many of them had bleeding wounds. The nurse asked the terrorist for polydine and bandages and she tended to their wounds.

A medical official who spoke with six hostages told Maariv: “They arrived suffering from malnutrition and electrolyte imbalances and lost weight. One of them even lost 20 kilograms (44 pounds). They told us they often went to bed hungry.”

“There were certain differences in the conditions of [different groups of hostages] but they all said that they simply didn’t have enough food, and when they did have, it was rice and pita – different from the thick ones we’re familiar with in Israel. They received water and tea and there was no shortage of those.”

Some of the hostages told Israeli security officials that after being abducted, they were held in buildings and shortly afterward they were moved to an underground compound.

Kan News reported that some hostages said they were held in some type of hall, where they lived with other hostages under the guard of armed Hamas terrorists. They were provided canned food such as chickpeas and beans, and at the beginning, they were given chummus and pita.

Released captive Ruti Munder, the grandmother of Ohad Munder, told Channel 13 News: “We would get up late. The boys went to bed late, and the girls would sometimes cry. It was very difficult. At night we covered ourselves with a sheet, that’s all we had and not everyone always had one. The boys who were with us slept under the benches, on the floor, because we wanted them to be with us so they wouldn’t be alone.”

Channel 12 News reported that different hostages had different experiences as they were separated into groups and held in different places, above or below ground. But some conditions were the same for all of them – they ate very little and had no access to showers or a change of clothing. There were power outages part of the time and they were completely disconnected from the outside world. They were moved from place to place at the direction of the terrorists.

On the day of the release of the first group of hostages, the terrorists told Yaffa Adar and the other woman and children being held with her, that they were going to be released and returned to Israel. In order to create a false impression that the hostages were well-cared for, the terrorists brought them new clothing – after 50 days of no showers and wearing the same clothing.

The report added that in the first days, the terrorists showed Adar a photo of her granddaughter appearing in the media. Her granddaughter said that the photo “kept her going. She told us that she knew her children and grandchildren would not let her remain in captivity and would fight for her.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)