Former Hamas hostage Arbel Yehoud shared her harrowing story after spending nearly 500 days in Palestinian Islamic Jihad captivity.
Speaking from the ruins of her once vibrant home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, Yehoud, 29, described living under constant threat, knowing that if the IDF ever attempted a rescue, her captors would execute her on the spot. “I was sitting next to them, loaded guns pointed at me, knowing they would shoot me in the head the second the army arrived,” Yehoud told Channel 13 in an emotional interview aired Monday night.
Yehoud’s darkest moment came on February 12, 2024, when Israeli forces daringly rescued fellow captives Louis Har and Fernando Marman from Rafah. She vividly recalled the terrifying sounds of warplanes, flares lighting up the tent camp, and gunfire echoing all around. One of her captors, she said, stood ready with a weapon trained on the flimsy tent she was being held in. “The fear was paralyzing,” she said. “You don’t know if you’ll be breathing the next minute.”
The agony was compounded by bitter reflection. “Where was all this on October 7?” Yehoud asked. “You’re fighting now to attack, but you didn’t fight to defend us that day.”
On that bloody morning, about one-fourth of Nir Oz’s 400 residents were either kidnapped or murdered in the Hamas-led massacre, which left 1,200 Israelis dead and 251 dragged into Gaza.
For Yehoud, captivity was a slow, agonizing march through despair. Isolated by Palestinian Islamic Jihad families, barefoot through blistering heat and freezing cold, she battled filth, hunger, and emotional devastation. Mice infested the tent she was imprisoned in; early on, one even bit her finger. Later, she was forced to kill them herself just to keep some semblance of sanity.
The first crushing wave of grief hit when she overheard Arab radio reports about the “Nir Oz massacre.” It was then she realized her brother, Dolev, had been killed — even as she continued imaginary conversations with him to keep herself anchored. “I had to disconnect from grieving,” she admitted, “to survive.”
At her lowest point, she scrawled the word “help” in Hebrew and English on her hand, raising it toward the sky — wishing, even welcoming, a rocket strike to end her torment.
Yehoud taught herself Arabic to communicate with her captors, and in her darkest hours, she held onto a shred of hope: waiting for a sign that the nightmare would end. It finally came in January 2025, during a ceasefire deal that secured her release — but only after she was paraded in propaganda videos, forced to hand out sweets to Gazan children to polish her captors’ public image.
Walking through throngs of Gazans on the day of her release, clutching the hand of the largest terrorist she could find for protection, Yehoud said every step felt like “an eternity.”
When a Red Cross worker finally grabbed her from the crowd and shoved her into a van, Yehoud said she didn’t breathe a sigh of relief — she screamed.
Now living in temporary housing in Kiryat Gat, Yehoud returned to her ruined home in Nir Oz for her interview, determined to send a message to her still-captive partner, Ariel Cunio.
“I’m here. In our home. Waiting. And I’m not going anywhere until he comes back,” she said, her voice resolute.
As of today, 24 hostages are still believed to be alive in Gaza, including Ariel and his brother David Cunio. The remains of 35 more, including soldiers killed in past conflicts, are also thought to still be held by Hamas and its allies.
(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
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And Israel is guilty of war crimes in the world opinion. The GutterRat from the UN has not even a comment to make only his stupid two state solution silliness again and again.