Gadi Moses's captors lied to him that his partner Efrat was alive and his daughter, Moran, was held hostage while he was in Gaza captivity, the released hostage shared in an interview with Channel 12's Uvda on Thursday.
Moses was taken captive from outside his home on October 7 when Kibbutz Nir Oz, where he lived, was invaded by Hamas terrorists.
"At some point, they gave me a page with pictures of all the hostages. I see Efrat, and he also shows her to me on his computer as one of the captives."
For her birthday, as well as Moran's, whom the terrorists claimed had been kidnapped, a terrorist said he would dispatch a birthday message to the two.
The terrorist subsequently claimed the message had been received enthusiastically.
Only a month later, when the terrorists allowed him to listen to the radio for a few instants, did Moses hear that his partner had been killed.
"Then my world collapsed," he said.
"I realized that he had lied to me, and I threw the radio at him, saying, 'You liar! Why are you lying? You didn’t message her on WhatsApp, and she didn’t reply to you. You probably lied to me about Moran too.'
That was when Moses decided his daughter had probably been killed too.
He recounted how his captors attempted to feed him forcefully. "Suddenly, I see him putting on silicone gloves. I started thinking to myself, 'What, does he want to strangle me? Force-feed me?' He punches me in the shoulder and says, 'You will eat.' I told him, 'Listen, if you touch me again, I will beat you to death, and I don’t care what those weapons will do to me. But you will not touch me. No matter what, I will not let him humiliate me.'"
In June of 2024, Moses was transferred to the Al-Mawasi area in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, which had been designated as a humanitarian zone. He was held in the area as the IDF eliminated Mohammed Deif, chief of Hamas's military wing, the Izzadin al-Qassam Brigades.
"My guard explained to me, 'You don’t understand one thing about Islam – I am obligated to protect you before I protect myself. But know this: if your army comes to rescue you, we will shoot you first and only then defend ourselves.'"
Moses shared his account of meeting with Arbel Yehoud prior to his release, 481 days after being by himself in captivity.
"I've known her since birth. It was a hug from a father and grandfather—everything you could imagine. It was a defining moment because I had been alone for 481 days, and I realized that Arbel had also been alone for 481 days. I felt like I was soaring out of that pit in the cemetery to embrace the flesh of my flesh. She said, 'You're not leaving me again.'"
Release from Gaza
With regard to the chaotic manner in which his release, along with that of Yehoud, was carried out in Gaza, he said, "I was sure we were being taken to some arena where they would tear us to pieces."
"They opened the door and told her [Yehoud], 'Come,' and I thought I was losing my mind. I couldn’t see anything, just a crowd. I heard the shouting, and they took her. I was terrified that they had handed her over to the masses."
He was allowed to leave the vehicle only an hour later, "I told myself, 'That’s it, they’ve devoured Arbel, and now they’re going to devour me.'"
After his handover to Israeli forces by the Red Cross, he was told his daughter Moran was alive. "That was the first time I realized she was alive and that I hadn’t lost her or the girls."
"I understand very well that I am the only elderly person who survived and returned alive," Moses, who marked his 80th birthday in Hamas captivity in Gaza in March, said.
"But I also understand very well the suffering and the torture that everyone who was there endured—those who were released, those who died there, and those who are still there.
"No one needs to invite you—you should be the first one here. People from all over the world are reaching out and wanting to help us—maybe our own government wants to help us, too?"
"I believe there is a future. The rebuilding of Nir Oz must happen," Moses, a renowned agronomist and one of the founders of the kibbutz, said.
"There is no other option. We need to start working so that it once again stands as the beacon of excellence it was before October 7. People will come."
