Inès Zeghloul, edited by Laura Laplaud / Photo credits: AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP
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12:56 p.m., November 29, 2023
Will the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza manage to recover psychologically? Six days after the start of the truce between Israel and Hamas, 60 Israeli hostages, women and children, were freed and able to reunite with their loved ones. Since then, testimonies have multiplied about a phenomenon which affects children: some of them hide in silence or whisper constantly.
Antony Blinken says he is going to Israel to try to extend the truce
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared on Wednesday in Brussels that he was going to Israel, in particular to try to extend the truce between Israel and Hamas.
“We would like to see this pause extended,” he said on the sidelines of a NATO meeting, stressing that the truce had allowed the release of hostages in the hands of Hamas and the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.
“Several” Russian hostages in Gaza will be released on Wednesday, Hamas says
“Several” Russian hostages will be released on Wednesday from the Gaza Strip where they have been held since October 7, Hamas said on X (formerly Twitter), without specifying the number.
Hamas had already released Ron Krivoi, a 25-year-old Israeli-Russian, on Sunday in gratitude for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “support for the Palestinian cause”. As for him, these new releases will be organized “outside the framework of the truce agreement” between Israel and Hamas, therefore without compensation, added the senior official.
“She was whispering, I couldn’t hear her”
Face emaciated and livid, the images of Emily’s liberation, for example, are striking. The nine-year-old Israeli-Irish girl, released last Saturday, runs and jumps into the arms of her family, but remains strangely silent. Thomas, his dad, speaking to CNN, describes this scene that he experienced, in his words, as a gut punch. “The most shocking thing, the most disturbing thing, was that she was whispering, I couldn’t hear her. I had to put my ear to her lips, right at that distance and say ‘what you said?’. She said to me, ‘I thought you were kidnapped,’” he said.
“Hamas terrorists told kidnapped children to speak very quietly”
Since then, the little blonde has returned to the family cocoon but she still hides in silence or continues to whisper. A phenomenon also noted by Meri, close to children released from the Beeri kibbutz. “The Hamas terrorists told the kidnapped children to sit quietly and speak very quietly so that their location would not be noticed. So when the girls came home, they were whispering and their mother found that something was indeed wrong,” she testifies.
As if conditioned not to make noise, this fifty days in captivity already leaves its mark. Other testimonies report crying spells and sleepless nights.