For 482 days, Arbel Yehud was held captive in the Gaza Strip, in complete isolation, enduring hunger, abuse, and violence.
By Rachel Avraham
Former hostage Arbel Yehud reflected on her time in captivity in an interview with Channel 12 on Friday, the Jerusalem Post reported. Yehoud described her survival as a daily struggle, saying, “You wake up and realize you’re still alive. All that’s left is to hold on to hope and pray that one day you’ll get out. There are very, very, very hard moments when you just want to put an end to it yourself, and those are terrifying moments.” When asked if she reached such a moment, she replied, “Yes. But I never lost that one percent of hope, even if it was just the last fumes.”
For 482 days, Arbel Yehud was held captive in the Gaza Strip, in complete isolation, enduring hunger, abuse, and violence, Arutz Sheva reported. Yedioth Achronot reported a few months ago that following an Israeli operation that harmed relatives of her captors, Yehud said she was beaten and thrown into isolation “for many days, without food suitable for human consumption and under hygiene conditions reminiscent of concentration camps during the Holocaust.”
Describing the moment of her abduction from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, she recounted to Arutz Sheva how she and her boyfriend Ariel Cunio were separated: “In the vehicle. We held hands the whole time. He said a sentence. I said a sentence. ‘Our lives are gone.’ And then, they just… tore him away. I didn’t even get to say goodbye. I didn’t get to look into his eyes. I remember screaming for him, trying to move toward him, but they silenced me very quickly.”
During her captivity, Arutz Sheva reported that she was exposed to images of releases through Al Jazeera broadcasts: “In the last month and a half to two months, a TV arrived… Suddenly, I saw that it was so many people from the kibbutz.”
According to the report, she struggles to recall the moments of her return precisely: “At first, we were close to the Red Cross vehicle, then we turned right and moved away… There was fear, you know, because of the chaos, that there might be shooting in all directions. Later, in the crowd, I was in complete shock. There are parts I don’t remember.”
But even now, after physically returning, her emotions remain captive, Arutz Sheva reported: “Physically, yes, but not in my heart or mind. I’m there. You can’t leave a place like that. Knowing you got out, and others didn’t.” When asked if Ariel knows she’s alive, she replied, “To be honest, I don’t know. But I think… maybe, for the sake of psychological terror, they probably told him.” To the question, “How alone are you?” she answered, “Not as alone as I was there, but I feel alone.”
For Yehud, the absence of Ariel remains an open wound, the Jerusalem Post reported. When asked what she misses most, she replied: “Sleeping next to him, sitting with him at home, talking to him, hearing his voice.” Now focused on advocacy, Yehud organized a soccer match for Ariel’s birthday. “I imagine hugging him in Re’im, sleeping next to him for the first time, our wedding, our kids together. Everything. I imagine it and I call it in,” she told N12.
Photo from StandWithUs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CosyNMgWyFA
