The three Franco-Israeli children, Erez and Sahar Kalderon, 12 and 16 years old, and Eitan Yahalomi, 12 years old, released by Hamas on Monday November 27, are doing well, said Tuesday November 28, on RTLthe French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Catherine Colonna. “There is classic medical monitoring, as always in these cases, but they do not seem to have been tested beyond this terrible detention and what it may have represented in terms of psychological shock and difficulties in daily life. »
Since Friday, the Palestinian Islamist movement has freed sixty-nine hostages. Others are to be released on Tuesday in exchange for prisoners held by Israel, after a fragile truce in the Gaza Strip was extended for two days. The first testimonies from hostages on their conditions of detention began to trickle in, often in an indirect and fragmented manner; they allow us to sketch an imprecise framework of what they experienced during these fifty days of their captivity.
The spokesperson for the Israeli army, Daniel Hagari, has already warned that the military authorities “meet[aient] each hostage released and collected[aient] all the information that[ils] p[ouvaient] get from them. » However, he assures, “What we have learned will not be made public.” The hostages’ entourage is also reluctant to give details of what their loved ones experienced, so as not to “increasing the burden on families whose members are still held hostage”explain at CNN the uncle of Noam and Alma Or, released on Saturday.
Difficult conditions of captivity, exacerbated by the war
One of the most precise accounts of the living conditions of the hostages held by Hamas was delivered Monday by Ruth Munder, 78 years old. She was released on the first day of the truce agreed between Hamas and the Israeli government on Friday, alongside her daughter, Keren, and her 9-year-old grandson, Ohad. All three remained in the hands of the Palestinian Islamist movement for fifty days after their kidnapping on October 7 in the kibbutz of Nir Oz.
Despite the fear, Ruth Munder recounted in an interview with the Israeli channel Chanel 13 to have stayed ” optimistic “ : “I understood that if we had been taken there, if we were alive, then we would be freed – they killed whoever they wanted in Nir Oz. »
She describes days of captivity that are long and “very difficult”. “It was stuffy, it was forbidden to open the curtains; the boys went to bed late and the girls sometimes cried. » In this same televised testimony, Ruth Munder recounts having slept on “plastic chairs, as if[ils] waits[aient] in a hospital, without mattresses ». “The boys who were with us slept under the benches, on the floor”further clarified Mme Munder. When a hostage wanted to go to the toilet, he had to request it by knocking on the door: “Sometimes they had to wait for permission for an hour and a half to two hours”also reported his niece, Merav Raviv, to Israeli media in English Ynet News.
The 78-year-old woman also describes correct meals – “chicken with rice, canned goods and cheese” –, with morning and evening tea and sweets distributed to the children. “We were getting by (…) until the economic situation started to deteriorate”she told Channel 13. “There were days when there was no food”, added his niece, who spoke with the three members of her family. According to her, they were mainly fed rice and pita bread, and her aunt and cousin each lost around seven kilograms during their captivity. All three, however, do not have “not been tortured or mistreated”specified Mme Reviv.
Released at the end of October after two weeks of captivity, Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, also assured, during a press conference organized independently of the authorities, having been well treated by her captors. “They were very generous with us, very kind. (…) They took all our needs into account, I salute them for that, they were very courteous. They made sure we were clean, that we ate. We ate the same thing as them”she said, specifying that she was fed pita bread, cheese and cucumber. “Every two days, a doctor came to examine usshe adds. He brought us the medicines we needed. »
Doctors confirm good physical condition of most hostages
The doctors who took care of the hostages upon their release confirmed overall good general health, despite psychological trauma which remains to be assessed. Duringa press conference given Tuesday morningthe director of a children’s hospital in Ichilov, where released women and children were taken, claimed that they were currently following “a medical assessment to check their condition”.
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But ” we can [d’ores et déjà] say that the physical condition of all children and mothers is stable”, said Dror Mendel. The director of the children’s department of the Schneider medical center of Israel, who took care of four minors released on Friday, had already said on Saturday during a press briefing : ” They are healthy. »
On Sunday evening, however, Soroka Hospital in Beersheba welcomed Alma Avraham, 85, and Mia Regev, 21. Alma Avraham, who allegedly did not receive treatment during her captivity despite suffering from heart disease, according to his daughter, Tal, was admitted there in serious condition, under sedation and under ventilation. Mia Regev was injured in the leg during the Hamas attack during the rave party. On Tuesday, however, Dr. Moti Klein, director of the intensive care unit, said has Ynet News that the state of Mme Avraham had improved: “She is responding well to the treatment she was given and is recovering. »
Psychological distress of children
Since Friday, several children, including three French people, have been released. Sacha Ghozlan, lawyer for hostage families and co-founder of the October 7 victims association, spoke to relatives of Erez and Sahar Kalderon, released Monday by Hamas, but he did not speak with their mother , Hadas Kalderon. “No one really wants to disturb her”he confides to World. He does not have information on their conditions of detention: “They are children, we must preserve them, [d’autant] that their father is still hostage. »
For their part, the family of Eitan Yahalomi, the third French minor released Monday at the same time as the Kalderon siblings, described a trying experience. Her grandmother, Esther Yahami, recounted Israeli channel Channel 12 that “during the first sixteen days he was alone (…) in a closed place. Then he was transferred to a group with people from [kibboutz] Nir Oz, among whom was his kindergarten nanny”.
On BFM-TVEitan’s aunt, Deborah Cohen, told, from Israel but without specifying how she obtained these details, that the child had been forced to watch footage of Hamas attacks. ” When [Eitan] arrived in Gaza, all the inhabitants beat him; He’s a 12 year old child.”, she adds. According to her, “Every time a child cried, they threatened him with a gun to make him keep quiet”.
The father of Emily Hand, a 9-year-old Israeli-Irish girl also released on Saturday, said for his part, to the American channel CNNthat no one had hit them, but the children couldn’t make any noise and didn’t have much to do except draw and play with a few cards. “Emily spoke in a low voice, to the point where it was really difficult to hear her”adds his father, Tom Hand.
“You can see the terror in his eyes”, he adds. Perception of time is altered: Emily thought she had been detained for about a year. The girl was kidnapped on October 7 while she was at a sleepover at a friend’s house in Kibbutz Beeri.
Tom Hand also explained that after the start of the Israeli offensive, his daughter was moved from house to house in ” the box “the word she uses to talk about Gaza.