Doctor about patients in Israel
Young ex-Hamas hostages now only “shadows of children”
December 4th, 2023, 9:55 p.m
In Israeli children’s hospitals, children who were at the mercy of the radical Islamic Hamas are treated. The young patients tell pediatrician Efrat Bron-Harlev and her colleagues in Tel Aviv about mistreatment in captivity. These leave deep traces.
According to a pediatrician, Israeli children and young people looked like “shadows of children” immediately after their release from Hamas hostage detention. Efrat Bron-Harlev, head of the Schneider Children’s Hospital near Tel Aviv, said the young freedmen were initially very intimidated. During the first time in the hospital, many of them hardly spoke or only whispered. “A boy asked if he could look out the window,” said Bron-Harlev. Many were unable to shower for weeks while they were being held hostage. “If they were lucky, they could wash themselves with cold water from a bucket,” she said.
Doctors report mistreatment by the hostage takers, and many children and young people were severely malnourished. Some of them were drugged. “We saw the first smile of many of these children after 24 or 48 hours,” Bron-Harlev said. This gave the doctors hope. “Children are incredibly strong,” she said. That’s why she hopes that they can recover from their bad experiences in the long term.
After the first smile, there were many questions from the children and many stories from their time as hostages. “Lots of stories that you can hardly imagine,” says Bron-Harlev. A three-year-old girl talked about a “red man” she had seen. It was an acquaintance covered in blood. The Hamas kidnappers told a 13-year-old that no one was looking for her and that no one cared about her. She now has to regain trust in her parents.
The medical team asked themselves how they could ensure “that this memory will make them better and stronger people in 40 or 50 years, and that it will not be a memory that destroys their lives.” Terrorists from Hamas and other extremist groups killed more than 1,200 people and kidnapped around 240 hostages in Israel on October 7th. A total of 36 children and young people have been released and treated so far, said Bron-Harlev. “What these children have been through is unimaginable,” she added. They now have to help them “recover from this catastrophe”.