The BBC has heard from the parents of four young Israeli women who were liberated from Hamas captivity in Gaza of the brutality their daughters endured, including starvation, threats and intimidation from armed men, and being made to cook and clean.
They described how the captives were kept in structures and tunnels beneath the earth, subjected to physical torture, and forced to appear in Hamas propaganda videos—one of them even pretending to die.
They said that journaling, painting, and exchanging tales gave the ladies strength.
Since their release, none of the ladies have spoken to the media, and their parents claim that the whole scope of what they went through is still being revealed. They are also unable to discuss some topics for fear of endangering the captives who are still in Gaza.
Hamas abducted three of the four ladies whose parents talked to the BBC from the Nahal Oz army facility outside Gaza on October 7, 2023.
According to their parents, over the 15 months they were detained, the hostages’ access to food and the way the male guards treated them changed. They were relocated and seldom ever saw the sun.
“Everywhere she went, there were significant differences; a tunnel may be excellent or really awful. The father of 20-year-old soldier Agam Berger, who served in Nahal Oz, stated, “It could be a good house or a bad house.”
While some of the restaurants served delicious meals, others served “very bad food… they just tried to survive,” according to Shlomi Berger.
There were notable variations everywhere she went; a tunnel may be great or very terrible. According to Agam Berger’s father, a 20-year-old soldier who served in Nahal Oz, “It could be a good house or a bad house.”
Shlomi Berger claims that some of the eateries had “very bad food… they just tried to survive,” while others served delectable meals.
Significant weight loss has also been observed by other parents. Hamas abducted Meirav Leshem Gonen’s daughter at the Nova music festival.
According to her mother, Romi, 24, had dropped “20% of her body weight” by the time she was liberated during the first week of the truce in January.
According to Ms. Gilboa, watching a video that said her daughter had been murdered was the most difficult thing she had to go through. She seemed to be plastered in plaster when her captors threw powder on her, giving the impression that she had been murdered in an Israeli military attack.
“I think everyone who saw it believed it, but I just kept telling myself that it can’t be,” she stated to the BBC.
The conflict began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking another 251 captive.
Since then, Gaza’s health ministry, which is governed by Hamas, has reported that more than 48,230 people have died there. The UN believes that over two-thirds of Gaza’s structures have been damaged or destroyed.
Since the ceasefire agreement started on January 19, more than 600 Palestinian inmates detained in Israel have been traded for 16 Israeli and five Thai hostages.
Mr. Berger claims that throughout her detention, his daughter Agam experienced physical abuse and threats from her kidnappers.
He claims that “sometimes they tortured other female hostages in front of her eyes,” alluding to an attack on Amit Soussana, a previous hostage who was set free in November 2023 but was later freed.
According to Mr. Berger, his daughter informed him that armed guys were ever-present and “playing all the time with their guns and their hand grenades” while keeping watch over them.
He claims that the ladies were subjected to “big disrespect” by their male captors, who also had them clean and cook.
“She was somewhat irritated by that. She’s a girl who will speak out if she has anything to say. She is not timid. Additionally, she occasionally expressed her thoughts on them and their actions to them,” he claims.
In a tiny act of defiance, he continues, Agam had declined to work on the Sabbath, the Jewish day of rest. This was acknowledged by the men holding her.
Additionally, they were prohibited from speaking loudly.
“Agam wanted to talk all the time when she returned to Israel. She spoke so much that she lost her voice within a day, according to Mr. Berger.
Yoni Levy, whose daughter Naama, 20, was also taken from the army base, says she was sometimes held in locations where there was a TV or radio playing.
Once, Naama saw her father talking on TV. “It gave her a lot of hope and optimism… that nobody would forget her, and we’ll do whatever is needed to take her out of this hell.”
He says for Naama, the Hamas attack on the army base was “was much more traumatic than the captivity itself”.
“It may change but at this stage we think that this is the most tragic day that she’s talked about,” Mr Levy says.
Footage of Naama that day shows her and other female soldiers in bloodstained clothing surrounded by armed men in a room at the base before being forced into a vehicle and taken to Gaza.
The three female soldiers whose parents spoke to the BBC are among five from an all-women unarmed military unit at Nahal Oz freed in the first round of the ceasefire.
Members of the unit, known in Hebrew as Tatzpitaniyot, are tasked with observing the Gaza border and looking for signs of anything suspicious. Survivors and relatives of some of those killed that day say that they had been warning for months that Hamas had been preparing for an attack.
A few days before the 7 October attack, Daniella had been at home on a break from service. She had told her mother then: “Mummy, when I go back to the army, there’s going to be a war.”
“I didn’t think it was going to be such a war and of course that my daughter would be taken hostage,” Ms Gilboa says.
Ms Gilboa and the families of the two other observers who spoke to the BBC say they are joining calls for an inquiry into what happened.
They say their daughters remain concerned about the conditions of those still in Gaza and have called for the ceasefire to continue.
Ms. Leshem Gonen claims that she is still in the process of finding out what happened to her daughter Romi.
She suffered “an open wound where she could see the bone” as a result of improper treatment, according to her mother, after being shot during the Nova music festival.
“We can learn about this and she talks about it. I believe it will take time for the other stuff.
“Intimidating” and “frightening” are how Ms. Leshem Gonen describes Romi’s release during the first week of the truce. Crowds and shooters encircled her. But it was “so powerful” when they reunited.
The parents also described how their daughters had found ways to get through each day in captivity – through drawing, making notes or sharing stories with each other.
“They wrote as much as they could, every day – what was happening, where were they moving, who were the guards and things like that,” says Mr Berger.
While in captivity, the young women had dreamt about the things they wanted to do when they got home: getting a haircut and eating sushi.
Daniella had drawn a butterfly with the word “freedom” while in captivity – she now has that tattooed on her arm.
They are adapting to life back in Israel, and their families say they are taking the recovery step by step.
The moment of reunion with his daughter Naama is still a blur, says Mr Levy, but he remembers the emotion.
“The feeling was that… I will take care of you now, and everything’s going to be OK. Daddy’s here. That’s all. And then everything was quiet.”
Additional reporting by Naomi Scherbel-Ball
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