‘Chained Like An Animal’: Alon Ohel Reveals Life Inside Hamas Captivity

A harrowing new interview broadcast by Channel 12 on Monday offered the public its first full look into the ordeal endured by 22-year-old Israeli hostage Alon Ohel, who survived months of beatings, starvation, and psychological torment in Gaza. From the moment of his abduction, Ohel said he fought to stay alive by holding onto a quiet certainty that he would one day return. “I knew I would come back to my mother in the end,” he said.

Ohel explained that even as his captors stripped him of basic human freedoms, he clung to the one thing they could not touch. “In Gaza, they took away my freedom of movement, freedom and liberty, but not my ability to choose,” he said. He drew strength from the words of fellow hostage Eli Sharabi, who became a protective presence throughout their captivity: “To break is okay, but never lose hope.”

He described the chaos that erupted at the Nova festival as the attack began. What started as rockets turned into gunfire. “We thought it would end, but then we heard Kalashnikovs. You just wait for your death,” he recalled. In the middle of the horror, he witnessed Aner Shapira heroically throwing grenades out of a shelter until he was killed. Ohel said one of the blasts may have caused the wound to his eye.

After being overpowered, Ohel said he was shoved violently into a vehicle and taken across the border. “They threw me like a sack of potatoes into a truck… I said to myself: ‘Am I dreaming?'” he recounted. The hostages were dragged through a hospital and then hidden in a private home, where their injuries were sewn shut without anesthesia and strict silence was imposed. “They tore me from reality and put me in hell,” he said.

He described long stretches of hunger, isolation, and misery. “Chained like an animal, eating like a dog. You’re not a person there,” he said. Their daily rations were barely enough to survive. “We ate a pita and four spoons of peas a day. Sometimes, only dry dates. You look at yourself and see a corpse.”

Despite the conditions, Ohel formed a deep bond with Sharabi. “From the first moment, we connected,” he said. After injuring his own hand out of despair, Sharabi held him tightly. “Eli hugged me, it was a father’s hug.” The two pledged to hold on for the sake of the people waiting for them at home. Often chained to one another, “We did everything together,” he said, surviving bombings and repeated transfers between tunnels.

During one phase of hostage exchanges, Ohel was torn from Sharabi and left behind. “All my fears came true,” he said. The guards became harsher, and he described disturbing encounters, including sexual harassment. “He came to wash me in the shower… he touched me,” Ohel said. “Luckily, it didn’t go further.”

As negotiations dragged and Hamas feared bad publicity, his captors began offering slightly improved meals and even handed him an English copy of Harry Potter. “I skipped the last chapter. I told myself: ‘This is not my end.'”

Eventually he was moved above ground to southern Gaza, where he suddenly recognized another hostage from his army service. They were told to write letters to their families. “I wrote that I love them, that I’m alive and breathing, and that they’re my strength to survive.”

One day, Hamas commander Izz al-Din al-Haddad entered and signaled an abrupt change. “You’re leaving,” he told them. Ohel was then transferred to the Red Cross, whose representative apologized and admitted the organization had done nothing to help. Only when the vehicle doors opened and he saw IDF reservists did he feel the nightmare lifting. “You see who fights for you. It kills you,” he said.

Reunited with his family, Ohel tried to maintain composure until he learned that Sharabi’s entire family had been murdered on October 7. The news crushed him. “I knew them,” he said, overcome with emotion.

Looking back on his journey through darkness, Ohel described a hard-won inner rebirth. “For two years, I was a dead person. I prayed for someone to rescue me. But I discovered I’m strong. I’m not a victim. I take what I went through and grow from it. I’m going to take on this world.”

{Matzav.com}