Hostage tells of inhuman suffering

About 130 people kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 last year are still being held hostage or presumed dead in Gaza. According to Israel, 253 people were kidnapped during the massacre in which Hamas murdered approximately 1,200 people and injured over 3,000.

Shlomo Mansour, 85, was kidnapped in Kibbutz Kissufim. Shlomo immigrated with his parents to Israel at the age of 13, after escaping the Farhud massacre in Iraq, committed during World War II by pro-Nazi Iraqi Islamists, supported by Nazi Germany and SS officer Haj Amin al-Hussein. Photo: Private

When Knesset member Simon Davidson from the Yesh Atid party attended the Jerusalem Prayer Breakfast in Stockholm in early April, he gave an account of the hostage situation.
– 134 people are underground, without food or water, raped, every day. Three days ago in the Knesset, we had a gathering where women who had been abducted to Gaza and then returned, told the true story of the time of their kidnapping. We sat in a room with women and mothers and I cried for almost an hour. The things they told are impossible to comprehend, the rapes, the beatings, being without food.They were only allowed a quarter of pita bread to eat per day for almost six months.
About 130 people kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 last year are still being held hostage or presumed dead in Gaza. According to Israel, 253 people were kidnapped during the massacre in which Hamas murdered around 1,200 people and injured more than 3,000.
Here are some stories of those still being held, as reported by the BBC.

Doron Steinbrecher, 30, a veterinary nurse, was in her apartment in Kibbutz Kfar Aza when Hamas attacked, the Times of Israel reported. At 10:30 a.m. on Oct. 7, according to the newspaper, she sent a voicemail to friends: “They’ve come, they’ve got me.”
Naama Levy, 19, was filmed being bundled into a jeep, her hands tied behind her back. The footage was released by Hamas and circulated widely on social media. According to her mother, she’d just started her military service.
Iraqi-born Shlomo Mansour, 85, was kidnapped in Kibbutz Kissufim while his wife Mazal managed to escape. Mansour immigrated with his parents to Israel at the age of 13, after escaping the Farhud massacre in Iraq which occurred after pro-Nazi Iraqi Islamists, backed by Nazi Germany and SS officer Haj Amin al-Husseini, attempted to overthrow the pro-Western monarchy in the spring of 1941. This failed. The Iraqi coup-plotters then decided to attack Baghdad’s Jews who had lived in the country since their captivity in Babylon 2500 years earlier.
Hundreds of Jews were cut down with swords or shot with rifles, some beheaded in what came to be known as Farhud. Babies were cut in half and thrown into the Tigris River. Girls were raped in front of their parents. Parents were mercilessly killed in front of their children. Hundreds of Jewish homes and businesses were looted and burned down.

Amiram Cooper, 85, and his wife Nurit, 80, were taken from their home in Nir Oz, their daughter-in-law Noa told the BBC. The family last spoke to the couple during the Hamas attack, Noa said, when the couple were in their security room. The family later traced Amiram’s phone to Gaza. On Monday, October 23, Nurit was one of two women who were released.
Avraham Munder, 78, was kidnapped from Nir Oz, Israeli officials say.
Karina Ariev, a 19-year-old soldier, was serving at an army base near Gaza when she was kidnapped. Her sister Alexandra told the BBC she heard gunfire when Karina called her during the attack, and later saw a video showing Karina being taken away in a vehicle.
Agam Berger, 19, was kidnapped from Nahal Oz. She was seen being taken away in videos released by Hamas.

Oded Lifshitz, 83, and his wife Yocheved, 85, were also taken hostage from Nir Oz. On October 23, Yocheved was released. Haim Peri, 79, was taken from his home in Nir Oz, the Times of Israel reports. His son Lior Peri told Talk TV that Haim had locked his wife in the shelter before surrendering to the kidnappers.
Alex Danzig, 75, a scholar and historian of the Holocaust, was in his home in Nir Oz when it was attacked by Hamas. “We know for sure that he was kidnapped,” his son Mati told the BBC.
Alex – whose older sister Edith is a Holocaust survivor – has spent the last 30 years working for Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Centre.