David and Varda Goldstein pose for a picture while holding photos of their 3 grandchildren, Nov. 22, 2023. Photo: Amir Levy/Getty Images.
Released captives were ‘were under constant threat’ from Israeli army shelling, they angrily told prime minister Netanyahu in a face to face meeting
A recently released Israeli captive held in Gaza revealed that she feared Israel would kill her and others through indiscriminate shelling and then blame Hamas, Ynet reported on 6 December.
Menir Oz made the statement in a meeting between her and other recently released captives and their family members on the one hand, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet on the other.
During the meeting, the released captives and family members expressed anger at Netanyahu for his war policy which put their lives in danger.
“I was there and I know how hard it is in captivity,” said Menir. “Every day in captivity was very difficult. I was in a home when there was shelling all around. We were sitting in the tunnels and we were terribly afraid that not Hamas but Israel would kill us, and then they would say, ‘Hamas killed you.’ So, I very much ask as soon as possible to start exchanging the prisoners and everyone should return home. There is no priority [of some over others]. Everyone is important.”
Bar Goldstein told what his family members who returned from captivity in Gaza described to him: “Fortunately, I had the privilege of receiving my sister-in-law Chen [Goldstein Almog] and her children. They were under constant threat from the IDF [Israeli army] shelling.”
He told Netanyahu that “You sat in front of us and assured us that it does not threaten their lives.”
The shelling was dangerous because the captives were not held just in tunnels and homes but had been moved on donkey carts through the streets of Gaza, exposing them to the bombing which has killed almost 16,000 Palestinians since 7 October when Hamas took the Israelis captive.
“You will not be able to recognize them on the street and you are endangering their lives. It is our duty to return them now,” he added.
Another captive who was released with her children also expressed anger at the army’s shelling of the location where she was held in Gaza, and that Israeli Apache helicopters had opened fire at them as they were being taken from their home across the border into Gaza.
She said: “The feeling we had there was that no one was doing anything for us. The fact is that I was in a hiding place that was shelled and we had to be smuggled out while we were wounded. Not to mention the helicopter that shot at us on the way to Gaza. You claim that there is intelligence, but the fact is that we were being shelled.”
She also expressed anger that the army was discussing flooding the tunnels under Gaza with sea water to kill Hamas fighters while her husband and others remain captive in the same tunnels.
“My husband was separated from us three days before we returned to Israel and he was taken to the tunnels. And you are talking about flooding the tunnels with sea water? You are shelling the route of tunnels in the exact area where they are.”
A 6 December report from The Grayzone further indicates freed Israeli captives feared being killed by their own army while in Gaza. According to a Facebook post by Israeli television producer Hagai Levi, “From the reports of the returning abductees, it is repeated that the most horrifying captivity trauma they experienced was probably the IDF bombings.”
Levy stated further that, “When they tell about them, they literally tremble in front of me. The terms are of hell, of the brink of death, of an earthquake, of noise from another planet (which also caused permanent hearing damage). The fear of being murdered by the captors was zero compared to the fear of dying in the bombing.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu has vowed to both win the return of all the Israelis held captive by Hamas and also to defeat the Palestinian resistance group militarily. But many view these as contradictory goals and suggest the captives can only be freed through a cease fire followed by negotiations.
Hamas is seeking to exchange its Israeli captives for thousands of Palestinians held captive in Israeli occupation prisons.
On 7 October, Hamas launched a surprise attack in which thousands of its fighters broke through the border fence from Gaza into Israel under the cover of rocket fire.
To regain control of the military bases and settlements taken over by Hamas, and to prevent the group’s fighters from taking soldiers and civilians captive back to Gaza, the Israeli military employed overwhelming fire power, including from armed Zik drones, Apache helicopters, and Merkava tanks.
Some 1,200 Israelis were killed during the attack and subsequent fighting, while Hamas successfully took 240 captives.
Some of the 1,200 Israelis were killed by Hamas fighters and other Palestinians who later flooded into Israeli settlements to loot. Some others were killed by Israeli forces themselves, whether accidentally in the crossfire, or deliberately due to what is known as the Hannibal Directive.
