Freed hostages bring signs of life from depths of Gaza tunnels

Families of some Israeli hostages in Gaza have received signs of life from their loved ones for the first time in more than a year via captives who have been freed over the past weeks in the ceasefire deal with Hamas.

The messages, along with reports of their harsh conditions in captivity, have been carried by some of the 19 Israeli hostages freed so far in the ceasefire that took effect on January 19.

While the reports have strengthened the families' hope to reunite with their relatives, they have also filled them with dread over their wellbeing. The emaciated appearance of three of the hostages freed on February 8 have only added to their fears.

Signs of life have come so far from at least 10 hostages who were among the 251 kidnapped during Hamas' October 7 attack on southern Israel, which triggered the Gaza war.

Among them is Elkana Bohbut, 35, seized from the Nova music festival. A video of him bound and with a bloody face circulated on social media within hours of his abduction.

Almost 500 days after, through a freed hostage with whom he was being held in a Gaza tunnel, he asked his wife Rivka to listen every day to an Israeli pop song called "Warrior" and draw strength from it.

"500 terrible days have passed, and this week, thank God, we received a sign of life. Elkana is alive but suffering in inhuman conditions," said Rivka Bohbot, before she quoted the song back to him on Saturday.

"I promise you that we will not stop until you come back. We will never give up on you. Don't break, my beloved. Soon you will be home. Soon the nightmare will be over," she said, crying and smiling on the stage of a weekly hostage rally in Tel Aviv.

Another hostage who got a message out was 24-year-old pianist Alon Ohel, seized from a roadside bomb shelter where he had fled to from the Nova festival.

His mother Idit said he is being held injured and shackled in a tunnel, living off one piece of bread a day. But he still managed to send his sister a happy birthday message through one of the freed hostages, she said on Tuesday.

"It was wonderful," she said as she broke into tears. "To hear from her brother, which is incredible to have that on her birthday."

"500-DAY-LONG NIGHTMARE"

Marking 500 days of captivity hostage families and their supporters held a day of protests across Israel, calling for the release of the 73 captives still in Gaza.

Two of them are Gali and Ziv Berman, 27, twin brothers kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, who are not among the 14 hostages slated for release in the first and ongoing phase of the ceasefire.

Their family recently received confirmation that they are still alive, after last hearing that in November 2023, from hostages freed in a brief truce, their aunt Makabit Mayer told Reuters on Monday at Israel's parliament where she was speaking to lawmakers as part of the 500-day protests.

"The difficulty is unbearable. It's an ongoing nightmare but the sign of life certainly breathed life into our lungs, it has given us air to breath. But since we know whose hands they are in, we know it can change at any moment," Mayer said.

A spokesman for Hamas' armed wing said in January that the militant group maintains the wellbeing of its captives

Another hostage is Omri Miran, 47, who was last seen alive in April, in a video released by the militants holding him. He was kidnapped from his home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, in front of his wife and two little daughters.

"(It has been) 500 days that I wake up every morning and am still in October 7," said Omri's wife, Lishay Lavi Miran. "We don't want a sign of life. We want Omri to come back alive, here, to be with us."

Though it is painful for her when their three-and-a-half-year-old daughter wakes up every morning and asks when her daddy is coming home, she said, the family will not give up. "We always have hope. We can't be without hope," said Miran.

The hostages were taken in the Hamas-led cross-border attack on October 7, 2023, which also killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's retaliatory assault on Gaza has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health officials, and laid waste to much of the enclave even as the hostages remained in captivity.

Reuters