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In is year last week, L L. Bog wants to do something about his daughter, where who have been captured by home a year ago, there was eighteen and IT still hasted somewhere in gaza. And so he took a bullhorn and when to stand outside the event that was being held by the prime ministerial political party, we could basically, you want to, the people run in the country to make some kind of deal with her house and bring his daughter home.

And so, okay, he's standing there with his bullhorn. There's grieving word parent IT doesn't know if he's ever going to see his child again and someone there's an a at him and another some of the yells and cause my cancer on this road. Somebody excuses being funded by yaka ahead of.

This is not unusual in israel. The country is beauty, divided between people like these hostage families who are saying, stop the fighting, make a deal with moss, bring home the hostages. And on the other side, the prime minister's supporters in his coalition, people running the government, and want to press on on with the war and get to a more complete Victory over her mass.

Having israeli friend who said to me that this war is different from one's in the past, in israel, because in the past, he said, once the war started, everybody united. This time is driven people further apart to the point where even these anguish families do you think would have universal sympathy in the country by the target of all kinds of hate. Some of the examples, a real estate model. There was also a bigly code supporter rites tweet the call for the death of the mother of one of the hostages or here's a video that was personally of an israeli right winner on a motorcycle who pulled over next group of hostage families and tells them you're going to be murdered. I'm going to murder you, mark my words.

Sporting the hostages for so many people has come to mean that you oppose the israeli government and the way that they are conducted in the war, and you want to ceasefire and deal with hama's. Think here in the united states that we have a different picture of the hostages, what they stand for here.

I think there's this feeling that if you support the hostages, you support the war and the current iteration government, and the way it's conducted, that war with all the bombings and death, the passages are symbol, resemble, that means different things to different people in the U. S. And is, well, twenty years since the hostages were taken.

Current conflict with hamas began last october seven with the killing of twelve hundred people and the kidnapping of two hundred fifty one others. So much just happens in some, of course, israel killed up for forty thousand palestinians. Ninety percent of the population, almost two million palestinians have have been displaced from their homes.

This past week is really expanded the world of lebanon on with the ground invasion, iran and missile in response. And the wet has been grandma to try to stop a throughout regional war at this point. This words about so many other things than the hostages, but those two hundred fifty one people, one hundred seventy of them released, arrested, seventy dead, and sixty four who presumed to alive and incapable vy are still this symbol.

There are posters that people put up and other people tear down. There are, bring them home bracelet, ts, but there are so, you know, people each having their own personal and specific experience of this war, an experience of politics, plats, and wipe away just two weeks of t of the homa attack, very, very on. And eighty five year old hostage name, your heavy weapons ets was released in home as really are pretty excited that the press conference from the hospital just put on live TV in a wheelchair. Her daughter have to hear the questions and give answers sometimes. When how much released you, why did you shake the humdingers hand?

Because they treated .

us very nicely, my mom is saying that they were very delicate and gentle with them and took care of all their needs.

Television commentator is a newspaper columns jumping calling this press converse is a disaster, a propaganda went for homos, an embarrassment for the hospital. Mind you, lesh IT sells us, said a lot of all of things about commas. And her production attacker er is running rampant, beating people Young and old.

They head her in the ribs with a wooden pole. But the story they came out of the press conference was that he said something nice about him, as within a month, the hospice spokesman who organize the press conference was out of the job. There's things that israeli just did not want to hear right then here, that program to have this year, we tried to document what this war has been for palestinians.

And I suffer israeli. And this week, a year after these people became hostages, I thought I might be a good time to hear about their actual. We have experiences, all the complicated part that don't bit neily into some zimbabwe c picture of them, though these long interviews that in israel journalist lee aiim has been doing with hostage has been raised dairy news podcast called IT hard beyond one a day.

And these interviews you get to hear them just talking at lane and not sound by not an image on a poster. Hear what IT really happened, the complexity of what they went through, what they saw belt. One of things that's especially interesting, I think, to hear is the hostage of stories about their interactions with the people holding them captive, who, I have to say, they come across with way more dimension that I might have gust.

So most of these are were going to be hearing from one of the hard beyond interviews, a woman, name him how mog. And then when we get to the second half, the show, we're going to hear from a few of the other hostages who were interviewed is the ground from W. B.

easy. Chicago is an american. Live america. Stay with us.

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This american i've part one the abduction just heads up with progressive with kids on some of these gets intends. So hang a mouth gold stein of the rock boots called far as a but are two mouths from the government of border. But her husband, a dove, and the ford children, SHE and a dove, met in junior high school.

He worked as a social worker for a while, but then focused on raising our kids. The morning, october seven, sirens went off and they went to the safe room in their house. One of the things are a lot of people talk about in these interviews is how mystified they were that the army did not show up for many years, is that is the second astonishing thing that happened that morning.

The military forces is really trust to keep them safe and didn't arrive for over eight hours. Reasons that still have been been formally investigated. Hand family stayed in the safe room for five hours.

Then men enter the house, which really were shatter husband and off in the chest, SHE says, right in front of them. Soon after that, the shatter old started yarm in the face. I was twenty and home and leave from men to a military service.

Coin says, the last time he saw yam, SHE was filing on the four then plan, and three other children will get outside. There was your seventeen year old daughter gum. I also her two sons who were Younger, eleven .

and nine.

They a car, first car to my car. They try to start in depth car, but his car, when it's starting, it's very quiet. If if you don't know the car, you probably wouldn't understand. And they probably thought it's not working. And they brought the key to my car, and we .

got into my .

car, hoping that maybe someone will signal to me with their finger, maybe I tell the kids to escape. But on the other hand, IT was dangerous. I remember realizing this is very crucial. What I decide right now, that was, I was afraid they, they had us. Now.

the kids faces .

very deep, terrified.

looks at me. I remember .

they ask me what happened to my lips. The boys, probably White, was shocked. I was completely shocked when.

and I mean.

the car with the kids on the way to gaza, and I I need to like, understand and figure out that I was really important for me to tell the kids first, said, yum is not with us anymore, and a dave probably isn't as well.

anything. I'm him. They're happy.

They're very happy. I remember the driver and the guy next to him. They are filming us. I remember we're putting our head down. The government, me. Then they stopped near the fense IT was their fans already because I was, after some drive through the field, and they piled dead bodies on my car. I remember a gun telling the boys to look away.

And after .

seven minutes.

za.

it's unbearable. How easy what is and how fast? I mean, first of we are in shock. I was in shock.

hunted this a couple of times in the interview. The part of what was so standing about being taken hostage was how quick was one minutes in her home. Minutes later in gaza, capacity .

deserted.

the papers flying in the air.

We drive, follow more, and then the gate opens, the car goes in and they get clothes there.

A private home that's with the car stops. When says that are kids till then had held .

IT together that .

entire time, the kids were just so told, level headed. Their conduct was so IT was amazing. Like they didn't cry. They didn't do anything dangerous as they didn't yell, they didn't try to hold on to my clothes. I think they even try to talk to the terrorist, like, talk to them in english.

But now next to this private home .

to see the entrance to tunnel.

And this is the first time, the total was nine at the time. This is the first time he's crying. He he saw this black hole and and he got scared talk quite a bit when he stared at this tunnel. But he come down, they brought in water, and that's, we're going down this tunnel.

sound very deep, and we meet .

other hostages, come for asm, an elderly couple Young guy, and each is telling their own kidnapping story. And we can believe in .

gaza scribe, the condition nel said, that was .

sent everywhere and .

also in a mouth.

There was an a way that leads to the small room with some mattress. There's constants. We're been because there's concerns and it's it's pretty hot there. Twenty seven degrees degrees.

twenty degrees.

very twenty seven degrees and very humid, very damp.

Kids, three other hostages from the birds. We're kept in the town for two nights. He says one point, one of the guards brings a deck of cards to keep the kids occupied. The boys remember when nine hundred .

and eleven, at the .

oldest 7， couldn't breathe. And so they attempted to calm her down. They said, you, you'll be back in this by tuesday, tuesday, your back.

And this was said on monday, we were kidding up on saturday. So, and the truth is, I thought, I thought so too. I thought .

will .

be back by tuesday. They are gonna us, and then they gonna gure out what they are gonna .

do on tuesday. They do leave the tunnel, not for ezio. They're taking to a house .

next to the tunnel.

and and it's a house that is the sounds of kids, babies, women.

And there we .

can already hear the attacks. Gaza is being boarded at this point, well. And then they started wrapping us for another move.

Any move through the streets, they would be surrounded by dozen. And surround of varians was always a production because the characters were hiding them from the israeli and the general public, everybody. They don't want people to know that the israeli hostages walking rape sides and among the street.

So they put a government and clean into full in java beers and his jobs. Two boys got and tow, got hats. Then they moved mountain. It's five days into the war, israel's bub boarding goso, one of kids see israeli jet pying overhead. Hang says he and a gum take all this in and say that a to each other. But as the biggest really TV series and action shell about military special ops in the west bank, gaza, they end up in an apartment with spent the next five weeks, most of their time at goza.

Part two, daily life in captivity. So different house, just say they were held by different militant groups in all sorts occasion, all sorts of conditions. Some passages have been released, said they were beaten or sexually assaulted hen's families.

Now in a residential apartment building, got by two men who very much wanted to keep my secret from all the civilians living around them on all sides, which have lots of consequences for the way they lived. Only remembers are being really hot in that apartment. They had electric fan, but extrication is only on for an hour to a day.

so it's very hard without the fan when the windows are pretty much closed. They are heavy curtain on windows. And we weren't allow to go hear them. We weren't allow they keep opening them, closing them, open clothes. They don't want anyone to hear us, even people just in the building, or of course.

people on the streets. I remember I was very .

hard and I was the one turning because you're sweating there the whole time. Everything is wet, you're .

just soaked .

and sweat. They were still like explaining to us like, this is bombings from the sky, this is from the sea, this is our tiller. And when the house shock, they would move with us, away with us. We won. I don't know, for maybe five, say, at least they would say by by like it's far like you hear the whistle, you know the fall is going na be far they are trying to tell us it's gonna k it's far they tried to comment down. They they wanted us to be okay.

Living among the palestinians, israeli hostage is suffered through some of the same hardships of the war. Many hostages and the interviews talk about how hungry they were. The capital is tried to give them two meals a day. As israel bombing campaign progressed, of course, and the army rolled in, food and water got harder and harder to get gaza to the point when now gazers on the edge of famine, calling the of .

nations my water. They try to provide drinking water. You can drink water from the tap.

First of, there isn't like a steady flow of water. Sometimes there's just a drip, and it's basically salt water bathroom, very difficult bathrooms. You can't just like flush the water. Maybe, maybe we had that in the first two days, but then we couldn't flush the water. There was a really bad smell in the bathroom.

When power will come on for an hour, sometimes he says they get running water. Then I had to decide who could shower guards for some of them. The gum, the teenager really wants to wash her hair. That competition pretty much give up on .

showers for herself. I felt very strange in gaza.

Physically, the whole in gather was very weak. And I I kept thinking about what happened at home. I forced me up to remember how .

I less after he was shot.

like IT was like a form of of torture, of self punishment. Fortunately, over a time, as time passes, I that image gets byan. And I remember you is beautiful and happy.

But I I remember at first, I was really forcing myself to not forget how I saw her. Them in the whole thing just took seconds, and and I ran outside. I ran outside to the kids.

I didn't go down to help her. I didn't. I didn't check on her. I I was terrified.

Looking back now, I I realized that in a way, I I chose life like I I went outside to a garman garden town now in .

the apartment with those three surviving kids who ince was in a consent state alert to protect them. SHE says SHE cried every day, but the cats did not like seeing them cry. SHE says they, one of them happy, not sad. So if you tried to conceal all that when that he says the department started shaking from a bomb, they fell her by the guys, had them back, back, ate. They will go into the street.

There's total darkness .

at seven P. M. And gaza is destroyed as devastated than we're walking outside within, walk long.

But we are outside me and the kids and oversight den. There's fire on us. I see the the red laser and depose fire and shooting .

on this fire from airplanes.

That's how I look like IT. IT came from above, from the air. And they discuss with us many times the absurdity of the fact that they are protecting us from our own military.

We had many conversations with them about IT, about how absurd IT is. And they would really put IT in our faces and kind of laugh about and smile about IT and would be like, do you understand what is going on here? We are watching you. We are protecting .

you market. That was one night. We spent .

night in the supermarket, and I was the first time that was an attack right near us on the street and the supermarket. The whole plays shook and and it's like a crazy jack. Cameras are just getting closer and closer to you.

We already saw all the rocks coming our way. It's it's so scary. It's, it's, it's like feels like the seconds before death.

And are with the terrorists that that sell.

that watch us there with their body's honest covering us on the metro, is protecting us from attacks of our own military.

The complicated relationship there with their capture, that subject a part three, the guards in general, the only classes members to talk to the media or official spokespeople and leaders and want to think about these hostile interviews, is that they give a glimpse of blower level Operatives, some come us, some with other millican groups Operating in gaza who are keeping israel hostage. Here's twenty nine, the interviewer.

these are the people holding you, and your life depends on them. So with all the hate, I assume IT was very uncomfortable situation. I imagined myself, I want them to like me so I can survive. So how did you manage to the ultimate, can I? They will be them.

Yeah, we realize our lives are in their hands, and we realized they were just a cog in the system that they are not the people making the decisions. Sometimes I would ask them, if someone gave you the decision to hurt us, would you do that? And they would say, no, we are gonna die before that happens. Worst case, we all gona die together. And that was pretty encouraging to hear and says .

that eventually there were four men guarding her family who thought they were twenty eight, thirty, thirty seven and forty four years old. Three married, two with his. The Youngest had failed engagement.

The oldest, who is most religious line, said he would read the most. One of was one in hebrew. I would ask him if he could study years.

Dates was the most pressing thing that you discovered about them, their sensitivity .

of time, how much they missed their wives. At some point, one of them wrote a letter to his wife, and I was, like, contagious, because then another one wrote a letter to his wife.

I'm gona drop here because I just want to point out the intimacy of this. These people locked together in a dark, hot stuff y apartment plains dropped bombs around them who cannot help but notice what the other is are doing in this crap space is so personal. But the same time they are not on the same team. There's a distance. So when going on gum, see the mall writing .

us to their wives.

And IT made this really nervous. A government. And I we were like, why do you need to write letters to your wives right now? Is something going on? Is there something about to happen? One of them said he had an agreement with his wife to put the letter in his pocket.

So if they found as body, they find IT in the pocket. We saw, we saw their pain. Sometimes we could see their pain.

We saw them breaking down and cry about the uncertainty of .

what's going on with the family, whether whether their family was hurt or no, that that .

was the main thing. And mister roll hand, kinda did they see with human beings? Yeah, IT seems so Young.

yes. I mean, I I felt like they are really liked, got in tol, despite all the harm that was done. And there .

was a beyond active in hamas.

They also had a business of the perfumes, and they really showed us, they brought a box with all the perfumes. They wanted a government to check that out, to try IT and tell them what we thought, what we like. They really showed us the syringes, how they make IT with the percentages of the col. They put IT together.

We also started having .

conversations about the roots in the depth of .

the conflict from their perspective.

We were the first ones who murdered. We were the ones who deported and murdered their parents in forty eight.

one thousand forty eight, the israeli state. The violence in that period resulted in the deaths of fifteen thousand palestinians and the displacement of over seven hundred fifty thousand others.

When the conversation reached those points, that's when we would stop because I would just get two tests because we didn't agree with them. But on the other hand, we also didn't know all effects to argue with them. So we didn't. We didn't want to upset them too much.

We wanted to be okay with them. Sometimes, though, couldn't help ourself. Like he says, every time they removed from one apartment to another pass, from one group of capture to the next, the humans would always ask, is this .

a family?

Yes, you murdered my husband. You murdered my daughter. So this is the family. And then sometimes after that they would be like, and sometimes .

they would .

say that if the person who murdered did IT in vain, like a human. And dev warned a real threat, that person on the day of his death, he will be judged. If you kill them in vain, you'll go to hell. If not, you'll go to paradise. Sometimes there was this moment of silence, or they apologize when they realized that their own people, their brothers, killed .

general, her captors were pretty .

unrepentant and open about their hopes for the future.

They also told us, we, like you, are good family, don't go back to for as a, 我 come back there again。 How many will we last time? Like three thousand? And how many people you think we have in organizations?

They asked .

me in a gun. So we will come. They say in three years, and three years will rebuilt and then forty thousand .

will come again.

They were in euphoria in the seven weeks that we were there in gaza. Our impression was that they were in they were laid over their success on october seven and that they planned to come again. We never got the impression that their spirits are being hurt because of the attacks.

Part for news from home. He is a radio in the apartment and some friends of guards with a hundred family listen. But who's an ordeal to get me to agree to that? But the news came on. There would .

be to be allowed to this .

to ten minutes worth. We just couldn't accept that they are talking about deepening the fighting and they don't talk about us. And when we came back, we actually talked about IT. And we noticed that ever since, they are making an effort to always at the top of the hour to mention the hostages, because we, we really waited for, at every time.

listen to the radio. They started to piece together how big the attacks of octopus had been in. They had no idea of the scope. Other has just said this two.

One told the interviewer that he was shocked to hear that seventy five people from her cubitt, a fifth of the cabot, had been taken hostage. He thought he was just her in the three other people who should mountain in captivity. I was listening to a broadcast when her .

own father came on the air talking .

about them goodbye and saying or sorry for a davin um that's when I finally realized .

that they're not with us anymore until .

then he held out hope .

that maybe the army had come right afterwards, said we're really moved to hear my dad on one hand and on the other hand, very.

very sad.

And so we keep asking .

for the radio.

One day on the radio, they heard about dramatic rescue of a hostage named a remember dish by israeli military, that these really seem to get to the guards. The guards start acting very differently.

They start going crazy. They were the bullet proof vest, and they put their uniforms like they became more like soldiers. Their stress immediately affected us, was projected on us.

I remember some point. They're also taking out some sort of grane in case someone is going to a break the door. And they told us if, if they gonna break the door, we algona hide in the bathroom together. I was just awful stress.

but the the hub and the news about, I did IT encourage you or interest you in anyway. And I mean.

we were, we were jealous of her. We were jealous that they were able to get to her and rescue her. But we also, we saw what he did, our guards.

That's why after they rescued the the last three hostages two months ago, I media thought a minutes. It's a happy thing. Each one is, is the universe, is a life.

But I immediate thought, what does that mean for the people still there? Are there being guarded more intensely? Are they being transferred from one place to another? Now I was scared. Maybe they're hurting them more. Maybe .

they're doing something to them now.

Animal gold stein being interviewed by wen aim history continues and we have mother hostages. Good in one who met the head of him as in a tunnel that's a minute which got above radio. What our program continues.

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This american life for my reglan today show fifty one days a year after the mass attack on this rail that started the current war. We're hearing the story of kann amoung gold stein, who was held hostage with three other kids for fifty one days. And before we get back to her story, wanted to buy you a few clipsal from some of the other interviews that we aimed with hostages for these really news podcast.

Hard by ARM one of the interviews you did give a glimpse of life in a tunnel, the very different from kinds experience. This is somebody you spend her entire time in captivity in the tunnels, seventy eight year old, they margolies moses. And the give your sense of her personality, her capture at some point, to started calling her the captain.

Because in epithelial group passage, SHE would be the one to suggestions to the guards, like, don't cook the potatoes in the morning and then serve them to two, two hours later, cooked them surely, before we eat them and bring them warm. But they want to play with a bit of salt, people like salt on the potatoes, margit says. When he arrived in gaza, they walked to deep into the tunnels and now, and a half for two hours, where they arrived at the rooms underground, where he and about fifteen people from hickwood ts were held. There were matters for S.

O. We had an .

elegant room, really, we had a room that was covered with ceramics, both the flow .

ceiling that was .

was and painted White with line. The walls were decorated with a beautiful, delicate design, and high up above the withdrawing of tulips with beautiful Green leaves.

It's come as how organized in .

the prepared to the tunnels. They are same, very, very .

organized. I walked around even at night. I didn't have that much to do unless somebody wanted to go to the bathroom and I helps them.

My guy was all night because he, somebody needs a sea pack machine to sleep. SHE brought one with her, but her capture took in, and SHE has a doctor for another one, SHE said. He smiled and laugh and said on those here. So SHE says she's sleep from more than five or ten minutes at a time for nearly two months. So now, anyway, should walk people with the toilet.

So I was walking around at night in the tunnel. And generally we only allowed to get to a certain point beyond which they said, you can go. I constantly was wondering, what is there that they don't let us go there? Do they have some weapons there?

Or I .

don't .

know what even that .

person that was supposed to be awake to suppose, watch over us. So I said, I really have to go see what's there.

I arrive and I see that .

there was a splatter of a few tunnels. So I pick to see into each one what, what's there?

Never fall to the room with .

lots of six back of mineral water. So strait away. One boat here, one bottle there.

You hit them. yes. And.

you know, water, at least for a few days.

SHE said. One tunnel SHE looked down at matters ses. Others had electrical wires, water pipes near the room. In the tunnel there was a kitchen net, the shells for canned food. There's a group of passages that were in a room that was mostly open, but at some cages, he said, like for prisoners inside.

really organized from the .

point of view. The tunnels numbers each for a different color. They sometimes had to walk around with notes that explain to them where to turn, because the place is huge.

Maps, maps, yes, maps. We reached .

two minus sometimes when they afraid .

there might .

be soldiers outside, they call us to come quickly, quickly. So we went down stairs quickly. And then we saw minus five. So just imagine kilometers and kilometers and five floors.

Incredibly, one day, the second day of their captivity, Margaret says they had a visit from the man responsible for the kidnapping and the deaths of the other ones, the head of clamours himself. Yes, in more say, I find this to be a completely believable story, because nothing dramatic happens in this story at all. Like if you made a story like this, a, the head of class would say something fascinating and revealing anger.

He would get off some great line. Not that happens. IT just seems like he ordered people to bring back costa's. They did. It's the next day, and he wants to see some of them from here's .

margolies account.

With his onto rage, he asked us, do you know who I am? So I said to him, yes, he has seen one so open he was surprised that knew his name. He said, yes, it's true. I guess in the world he speaks fluent eo very well. And he said not to be afraid, and they will give us anything we need, and that will only there to be bargaining chips for prisons exchange.

How did you feel to hear death from him?

Horrifying the audacity with which he said IT with his nose up in the air. For me, IT was an unpleasant moment, this arrogance of his, you meet you, and most of us were older people. What is the point of kidnapping older people and putting them there?

My like of him, him with the same time.

So that's marg'et mosses, who was really strong the same time as clan and her family. I want to buy you some stuff from one other interview before we get back to hand. Atos is seventy five years old, and from the same cubitt is mark lead.

Her left activity was very different from mark leds, or hands, for a few reasons. And one of them is that he speaks arabic. C taught in middle ols, partly out of an idea, is to believe in co existence, wanting to speak with their neighbors. And so SHE understood what was being said around her when he was in captivity. SHE was october .

seven to the of 是 你好 裤子。 We arrived at the .

vegetable sorting warehouse at the eastern output of they unloaded us, took from us some jewelery ahead from my mother. Wedding them .

to leave the glasses because without .

them and completely lose. Or they took IT because they claim has a tracking chip in IT, and they are pattern fied by chips. Try to .

explain that. Yes.

I try to explain them. What do I common with a chip? Well, they said you used to be a soldier.

he said, they said that to a seven, five old women because there is Mandate military service in. So he served.

But when I was a soldier, there was no computer and there was no chips. They expanded. Every soldier has a cheap. And I said, I wish I was true. If IT was true.

you would .

know where everybody is. He was the english big person he had for the first name, last name, I D number from where we are, and also was asking for the phone number of the children, naturally invented phone number.

the mountain check in the bemmon.

I said it's like checking in into a hotel.

Another fact about ata SHE left her home without putting on shoes. The capital total don't put them on. So SHE spent her entire captivity bear foot, though he was given a pair of sax in november when I got colder, auto was held capital with the other woman from marka boots. May left tow is in her fifties, twenty years Younger than auto. Not somebody who knew well before this, but the fact there is somebody else to share this with, really to find her time as a hostage easy.

They put us in their children bedroom. There were two bank bits. They give us the lower beds. I had the drawing of angry bears, and my rather had the .

drawing of sweet dream bears. Two sweet dreams. Thank you. And how did you test the time you, in my and hours .

of logic games, and we were playing a across brazil in our heads, we were talking about our family, every child, grandchild. We got to know each other family as if the .

two fast or sisters are very, very much .

part.

They also talk to their guards, one guard book in english and out, of course, spoke our a book. One of guards in particular, he says, was very loyal to her and me. He listened to allege zero and tell them what was happening in the news.

He said all .

the time that i'm treating you as if you are my mother government. I felt that there is some respects. We know that his wife is a midwife at the now the hospital in hunuman. He has four kids. He evacuated hair and the kids from the home to her parents home.

No, my city la. Oh, you really told .

you about himself?

Yes, he told .

this a lot one time .

and he was selling that. He said, i'm not involved. And I said, what do you mean not involved? And he said, i'm neither I D had nor how much, but I .

want money I I asked him.

but myself and mirrab are at your place in the kid's room. You took away our freedom, our basic ride, and you say that .

you are not involved. Want money.

I want money from itself in my a wife to get VISA for us and the kid and fly away from here, because there is no future here.

Okay, back to him and her family. We are at part five moving around. One of things you realized listening to plan is just how much of the experience of being a hostage can be just being moved from place to place. No idea where you are or where you're going or why have thought a gun worried every time they were moved, that this was the time they were going to be taken somewhere to be killed? When they walk through the streets, they are best to keep their eyes down and blended in.

The captor's gave them fake, named to use, if anybody tried to talk to them, and they would practice the principle of the names with them to be sure that they ve got them right that night, they thought they might die. In that supermarket, hundred of kids were moved to an apartment above the supermarket, to the building, started shaking, didn't seem safe, and they moved to a mask for shelter. And then they headed out on what hender remembers is a long journey through streets of gaza, part of him on a donkey cart.

Bombing, yeah, and roads that would end. And they would have to ask the locals whether we can pass through or not, and the donkey wouldn't, to make A U turn.

Finally, they reached an apartment which says was still under construction, maybe a month, and hf into their captivity. Now on before the end, one of the guards takes hand, and kids at the apartment .

and the street long walk .

in the street of gaza. We're outside them for the first time. We we see the sundown, and then we get to a school around .

the school were palestinian civilians and receiving shelter, and in your kids in the disguises currently, good, just another displaced palestinian family.

We help people were putting all these season, putting together these in prompt to ten and and there's a lot of people there and they approached the guy from the sale and they offer to help us to host us, he captain. The people are offering help because they see family with kids home. They offer to help where .

for the first time after six weeks.

we're sitting outside and we're seeing the moon and tell us telling me, hey, my look, this is, this is the moon. There was excitement in the air too, because there was a feeling of, like, ceasefire might .

be coming. Did you believe IT and SHE can yeah .

IT look like like, yes, I wish .

ed for IT.

And then I I look at the sky and I show, tell, and I tell him, look which stars are moving and which stars are staying still, because the skies were packed with plains. And then over them, people near the school launched rockets. And they were so thrilled with every rocket they they launched. I was immediately scared, like maybe now the planes are gonna bomb to school.

Then he says, the guy who is with them, who been with them for weeks, so goodyer to plan with some a quick return to israel, totally take a care of a gun and handle off to the next group of capitals. They're told there's no safe place above ground anymore. I got taken down into a tunnel with, met six other hostages, two kids for women, two women, Young israeli soldiers.

They had just finished basic training in the course, and they didn't even .

start doing their job.

Kids, they're like eighteen and half nineteen old. Some of them were alone until they got to the tunnel. Some more physically injured alone. Yeah, some of them went through a lot.

There were something really .

powerful about that week in that tunnel, even though with all the difficulties, and even though they seem to be honest, we are really there for one another. There are some sort of feminine energy strength .

in that tunnel. The two kids were sisters, eight and fifteen. The dad and his partner were killed on october seven, and the other women had been taken care of them in gaza.

Strength also .

towards the the alone. And and that's something I I couldn't .

handle to be for other kids. Yes, I I .

couldn't. But the Young women, they were there for them. They were with them even before we arrived. So they were the authority for those girls.

and I was in truly how they managed to handle .

them and be there for them with their physical injuries and with their emotional injuries, and still still try to function, to cook whenever possible, to be there for each other. I remember one day one of them had is like panic attack and he started hyperventilating and SHE started going up the stairs and SHE said there on the stairs and he was crying your heart out and he was crying and SHE just like.

it's like SHE couldn't breathe 了不 SHE wanted a moment .

or herself because all this together can be really intense to， and of course, were therefore another with helping each other. But I can just be suffer citing two and you you end up craving your your privacy in just a moment for yourself in some air and some space.

This will find other kids spent the week before they finally released. They were told during that week, it's gonna soon.

They keep saying friday, oh no, it's gonna saturday.

Oh no, it's gonna sunday. I remember .

thinking to myself, it's not a big deal like the absurdity of IT. It's not a big if I stay here .

one more day getting out, I realized i'm gonna .

have to face something very difficult that I lost the .

amin adv adobe, her daughter .

and husband course.

And the day of our released came he was a very nerve racking day. Saying goodbye to the girls was difficult. They were like, who's gonna released next? The civilians for us, the soldiers, I mean, the soldiers kind of understood that IT will take a little longer. I mean, they be that long, would never imagine they would still be.

There were two other one with you civilians, yes, wounded there.

IT was a difficult farewell. Also deciding what to say to their parents, but not to say to their parents. They ask us to fight for them, ask us not forget them, to go to protest, that we speak to their parents that we did immediately. They also told us what to say and what not to say. But everything was with the assumption that they would be released .

right after us. That still .

hasn't happened. They're still there.

Hundred family were released as part of a deal negotiated by guitar egypt, the united states, where eighty israelis, most of women and children, lots of older people, were swapped for two hundred forty palestinians, most of women and children held in israeli prisons. Kinds taner was broadcast in israeli TV. And the first stage of IT look up pretty chaotic, actually, is a random, massive people crowded on some sidewalk course.

Hostages pull up one after another. Each hostages usher down the sidewalk, passed all this confusion to another. Waiting car is frightening, he says.

a while from the huMason .

vehicles to the across vehicles. And it's all were being filmed at all stage. And it's like the moment of glory that wearing their best uniforms, we never saw these .

uniforms for.

And I remember asking myself how israel allow this, how israel allow our transfer to happen in such a expose place when tons of people were there.

like, we're scared.

We are so scared until the end. We already survive this. We already about to get release. And we're still like they had to make a scare for us all the way to the end.

Then the red cross vehicles take off and a comply and drive all the way to the border.

Magic, we are being .

moved to our military, very, very moving .

that moment.

The saddest happiness .

of my life, my a dog wouldn't .

be there to hug me. I I just wanted someone to be there and hug me and tell me that's IT you. You're safe now after everything was gone through .

other or how do you been an arabic teacher? I also talked to inherent in interview about that moment right at the end activity. When you finally remember IT out and reach the israeli military forces, you got to hear in a very different way.

last name. But, oh, love.

There was a group of officer there. There was a White shining tent .

with everything you could wish for.

I walked in and they took me in and I screamed, where?

Where you on the? Or that they .

deserve IT, because I was not them. But where the hell was the army on the seven october? And I started crying, and they caught me the moment I was falling down. And i'm not to one of .

those matters.

IT was a very difficult moment.

I know a family were filmed on the helicopter that brought them home, talking to the crew, getting a tour of the cock pit lens. Ys IT was hard getting this very respectful treatment, not to think about how this was the same military the chain or kids have been so scared of in gaza for so long. During the airstrike, these rescuers were in the same army that might have killed them.

The lister, did you say anything about IT? Can you be subs? And but I started talking about when .

I first came back, because when I was in gaza, I promise myself that I would talk about IT, that I would talk about that complexity. But then you come back and they tell you, don't talk about as much with the media, not with the international media, of course, because it's it's not a good look. And you see here how hard that is.

Like you see, people who did bunch of Operations in the military got to very senior positions and they're not able it's like they they can't they're unable to come and just say we're sorry. We're sorry for what you went through on the seventh when you were inside your shelter. We're sorry that we bomb in gaza .

when you are there with your kids.

Margry moses, the woman you heard earlier who was held the tunnels the entire time, was released two days before hand to get provided the summer by prime minister in that yahoo to me with him and some mother rogues usages. This letter as .

a reply in .

a thank you .

for the invitation.

but I will not participate in a meeting for the sake of photos and public relations. When my friends are rotting in hames tunnels in gaza with my own eyes, I saw them in life in captivity, and now, due to their second abandonment sense, october seven, we are receiving them in coffins. In light of reports that you have swarded yet to another deal to release the captives, I see no reason to attend the meeting with somebody who has demonstrated through his actions that the release of the captives is not a priority and who is abandoning them to their death. I would be happy to meet you at the welcoming event for the one hundred and nine captives upon their return to their families.

Thank you.

Our program is produced by dana chavez, dian w yah l. Evan or and me without help from Nancy uptick, based on interviews in israeli podcast, had beyond the production of in twelve the step of the hut beyon, who produced in interviews are in and guy embark 而 hibor interpreters were the L F N R A mirror Johnson a mi um cabin people put together our show today include being out of romania， commit manu hy W H gartley.

Roberts and texter mattering and Nancy updike are managing editor drama or senior editor David cam on executive editor is a manual barry. So thanks to know your hot ara I at the called and some kind also thanks today to the rest of the a hot beyond staff. Our website, this american live dot org, we can stream our archive over over eight hundred episodes for absolutely free.

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