While in captivity, Gadi Moses’s captors lied to him, telling him that his partner, Efrat, was alive and that they had his daughter, Moran, the released hostage said.
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 saw Efrat, and [the terrorist] also showed her to me on his computer as one of the captives,” he told Channel 12’s Uvda on Thursday.
His captor told him they would send a birthday message to his wife and daughter, then reported back to him that 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.
“That’s when 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.’”
Moses then decided his daughter had probably been killed.
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 punched me in the shoulder and said, ‘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 would not let him humiliate me,” Moses said.
In June 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, the 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 said that he saw Arbel Yehoud in captivity prior to his release, 481 days after being by himself.
“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 Arbel had also been alone for 481 days.
“I felt like I was soaring out of that pit in the cemetery to embrace my own flesh and blood. She said, ‘You’re not leaving me again,’” Moses detailed.
Concerning the chaotic manner in which his release, along with that of Yehoud’s, was carried out in Gaza, he said, “I was sure we were being taken to some arena where they would tear us to pieces.”
Release from Gaza
“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 captivity 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.
“People from all over the world are reaching out, wanting to help us. Maybe our own government wants to help us, too?
“I believe there is a future for us. The rebuilding of Nir Oz must happen,” Moses, a renowned agronomist and one of the kibbutz founders, said.
“There is no other option. We need to start working so that the kibbutz once again stands as a beacon of excellence as it was before October 7. People will come.”