If there was ever any doubt about the sheer evilness of Hamas...
Freed Hostage Ofer Kalderon was regularly beaten,
kept in a cage during captivity
Hamas wanted to convince Kalderon ‘that the world he knew no longer existed.’
By Vered Weiss, World Israel News
The family of freed hostage Ofer Kalderon, 54, reported that he was held in a cage, regularly beaten, and mentally tortured and humiliated by his Hamas captors.
His relative, Ido Dan, told Walla on Sunday, a day after his release, that Hamas wanted to convince Kalderon “that the world he knew no longer existed. He was kept in a cage for a long time and had to wait for permission to shower or use the bathroom.”
Additionally, Kalderon was regularly beaten and lost a significant amount of weight due to extreme malnutrition.
Dan continued, “He was lonelier than others, rarely exposed to television or radio. They didn’t show him that there was a struggle for his release.
“He didn’t see anything. He wasn’t aware of what was happening here… He only knew that there were demonstrations, but he asked questions as if he had never seen the news. There were relatives who fought for him and were interviewed frequently, and he asked what happened to them, if they even participated in the struggle.” However, Dan added that Ofer reported seeing his cousin Yifat Calderon demonstrating on Al-Jazeera.
Despite all that Kalderon endured, his family reported that he is showing his characteristic humor and appears to be in good spirits.
“He talks a lot, and so far, we’re surprised by his improved condition. We feared he would return broken. But he is very much the Ofer we knew—silly, full of humor, funny, and cynical. He makes everything feel light. It’s been an enormous relief.”
However, Dan discussed the toll his father’s extended captivity has taken on his children.
“The children haven’t fully recovered yet. You can see the effect on their behavior and anxiety… They are not ordinary children. With his release, the relief they feel is indescribable.”
Dan added, “I don’t think he fully understands what the family went through during that time or the level of anxiety we experienced. Until a few days ago, we didn’t know if he was alive or dead. We only knew there was a high probability that he was alive.”
Hamas forced hostage to write thank-you letter before release
American-Israeli dual citizen held captive for over year by Hamas terrorists was forced to write a letter thanking his captors before being released as part of the hostage deal.
Hamas’s depravity knows no bounds as Israeli media reports that recently freed Oct. 7 hostage Keith Siegel was forced to write a thank-you letter to his captors.
Published on Telegram by Hamas-affiliated channels after the 65-year-old’s release on Saturday, the letter is undated and carefully describes his treatment during his 481 days in Gaza
“To the Qassam fighters, my name is Keith Siegel and I am from Kfar Aza. I was a prisoner in Gaza from October 7, 2023, until January 2025,” the letter begins. “My guards during this period took care of all my needs: food and drink, medicine, vitamins, eye drops, a blood pressure measuring device and more.”
“They also made sure I got a doctor’s checkup when I felt unwell for a long time. The guards considered my needs and responded to my requests regarding nutrition, eating habits and more. They made sure I had food that suited my health needs,” he wrote.
Of course, the reality was much different, as revealed after his release. As a vegetarian, Siegel had been so desperate for sustenance that he ate meat whenever it was offered. The last meal he ate was 24 hours before his release.
Siegel was also forced to blame Israel for the delay in his release and for causing “many casualties and unnecessary damage.”
“To the fighters who guarded me during this period, I would like to say thank you,” the letter ends.
Perhaps he should have ended it with, "I pray G_d rewards you handsomely for your kindness and consideration."
In a statement, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum slammed Hamas’s abusive actions, characterizing them as “one example of many of the cruel and cynical conduct” of the Iranian-backed terror organization.
In fact, Hamas has developed a torturous ritual around hostage releases, complete with official “release certificates” and “gift bags” containing mementos of their suffering. They even prepared a package for Siegel’s wife Aviva, who had been released in a brief exchange a month after Hamas’s deadly Oct. 7 rampage against Israel in 2023.
==============================================================================================
Israeli Hostages Return Gaunt And Skeletal
During their release, the Israeli hostages have been made to suffer various indignities. Some of the girls and women, obviously frightened, have been surrounded by rifle-toting bezonians, pressing against them, screaming at them, pushing and pulling them this way and that, making it difficult for them, even with their Hamas guards, to make it to the Red Cross officials who were waiting to receive them.
Some of the hostages have been paraded on stages in front of Allahu-akbaring Hamas men. Some have been forced to sign documents expressing their “appreciation” for the “good treatment” they received from Hamas. All of them have apparently been told by their captors to smile for the cameras; some of the girls and women being released were ordered not just to smile, but to engage in joking banter with their guards, for if they did not, Hamas would take it out on those those Israelis still in captivity.
Three of the captives released — Doron Seinbrecher, Emily Damari, and Romi Gonen — were videotaped as they were handed “gift bags,” brown paper bags, really, that were said to contain mementos from their time held in captivity in Gaza. On each bag was the logo of the Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas. In each of the bags, there was a special certificate, also bearing the logo of the Al-Qassam brigades, titled “Release Agreement” in both Hebrew and Arabic, with Israeli media reporting that the document was signed by the Red Cross at the moment of handover.
God knows what Hamas hoped to achieve with that little farce. Israeli media has reported that those “gift bags” also contained photos of the hostages while they were in captivity, a map of the Gaza Strip, and Palestinian flag necklaces. How thoughtful. A keepsake, to remind those Israeli guests of Hamas’ hospitality. Ah, those blue remembered hills, those days of lost content, and those happy tunnels where I lay, and cannot come again. Who says Hamas doesn’t have a heart?
We swore ‘never again,’ yet Israeli hostages return
skeletal and tortured – comment
by Zvika Klein, Jerusalem Post, February 8, 2025:
The faces are haunting: Or Levy, Eli Sharabi, and Ohad Ben Ami. Gaunt and hollow, their bodies frail, tell the story of 491 days in Hamas captivity. Sunken eyes, protruding bones, and skeletal frames ring an instant bell for Israelis and Jews everywhere: survivors of the Holocaust, the Muselmann of the concentration camps, and those who starved to the brink of death.
But when these hostages came home precisely 80 years after the fall of the Nazi regime, the world’s response was unimaginably detached.
The BBC, ever selective in its moral outrage, conveniently omitted their suffering from its homepage. CNN, on the other hand, saw fit to highlight the “emaciated” condition of Palestinian prisoners released in exchange-prisoners who, it must be said, received three meals a day, medical care, and family visits. The comparison is not only absurd; it is obscene.
Not one of the released Palestinians who have been released exhibited the “emaciated” condition that Hamas now claims. It simply makes up its lies, throws them out to the world media, which dutifully disseminates them without any semblance of investigation. I have repeatedly viewed the scenes of those released prisoners sticking their heads out of buses; all appear well-fed; not a single one whom I saw could be described as “emaciated.” They were provided with three meals a day, after all, food with the same nutritional value as what the soldiers of the IDF receive.
Many of the Israel hostages lived underground in dark, dank tunnels for months at a time. Quite a few were subject to sexual molestation, including repeated rapes of both female and male hostages. They were fed starvation diets. Some of them report being given one-half of a piece of pita as a day’s ration. Their wounds were not treated. They were beaten according to the whim of their guards. Only after all of the Israeli hostages, both the living and those murdered by Hamas while in captivity (Hamas will claim they were all killed in Israeli airstrikes), are returned, will it be possible for the full and terrible stories of their captivities to be told. And they must be.
====================
Hostage Release Today Proves Hamas Are
Modern Day Nazis
Eli Sharabi, Or Levy, and Ohad Ben Ami who were released today by Hamas from Gaza appeared to be in a severe malnourished state resembling Jews found in Nazi Concentration Camps.
Medical teams that have examined the three men have reported that they were delivered in a severe malnourished state. Eli Sharabi was made to announce in front of his captors before he was released that he was excited to see his wife and daughters, not knowing that they had been killed on October 7th. He found out the horrible news when he returned.
Or Levy finally saw his now three year old son Almog over a video call who asked: ““Dad, it took you a long time to come back.” Levy’s wife Einav was killed at the Nova Festival. Or was kidnapped from the same festival.
Israeli society displayed shock at the state of the hostages, reminding Israelis from across the political spectrum just how evil Hamas and the Gazan civilian populace are. Like the Nazis of more than 80 years ago, Hamas purposely starved the hostages while they stuffed their mouths with western supplied humanitarian assistance.
In response to the images, Netanyahu vowed to get all the hostages back and wipe out Hamas.
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar added the following: “For over a year, the international community has danced to the tune of the false propaganda of so-called starvation in Gaza but the images we saw today don’t lie – Hamas terrorists and other Gaza residents look perfectly fine.”
”The Israeli hostages look like Holocaust survivors. Today, we saw that the only starvation is the starvation of Israeli hostages,” he accused. ”Hamas is committing crimes against humanity, against civilian hostages, and this Hamas Nazi evil must be eliminated.”
The fact is, the Israeli government must order the IDF to put an end to this debacle and sick macabre dance they are doing with the Jihadist populace of Gaza and empty all of Gaza of its occupants and crush Hamas once and for all. No one else is going to come and do the job for us. If we want to the terror and Jihad to end - Israel must put an end to it themselves. No amount of screaming to foreign governments will solve the problem – only we can defend ourselves.
The State of Israel was supposed to ensure that these images would never happen again – yet they have. Will Israel’s leaders finally order the military to do what is necessary? I certainly hope so.
=============================================================================================
No comments:
Post a Comment