Freed hostage Maya Regev takes first steps, recovering from Oct. 7 injury, captivity
21-year-old, who was shot at Supernova festival and released in November deal, was worried she’d never walk again; says doctors in Gaza poured acid, vinegar into her gunshot wound
Freed hostage Maya Regev has managed to walk again with the help of crutches as she continues to recover from injuries she sustained in Hamas’s October 7 massacre, medical negligence during her time as a captive in Gaza, and subsequent surgeries to repair the damage.
Regev, 21, was abducted along with her brother Itay, 19, and their friends Omer Shem-Tov and Ori Danino from the Supernova music festival on October 7, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists burst across the border into Israel, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.
At the music festival, terrorists massacred 364 people, gang-raped others, and abducted dozens to Gaza, among them the Regevs, who were both shot in the legs as they tried to escape the carnage.
The siblings were among 105 civilians released during a weeklong truce in late November, after weeks of captivity in Gaza.
Regev said that she returned from Gaza with many infections, a fungus growing inside her bone, and other signs of medical negligence. Eight months after her release, her road to recovery remains long.
In a video posted to her Instagram account on Monday that was shared by others on X, Regev wrote as a caption: “I’ve been through a lot with this leg. Lots of surgeries, lots of complications, and especially lots of frustration.
מיה רגב מצליחה לעשות צעדים ראשונים בשיקום אחרי הזוועות שהיא עברה בשבי זה כל מה שרציתי לראות היום pic.twitter.com/qtlWDYxf5N
— Dana Gat (@DanaGat1) August 6, 2024
“At one stage, I didn’t believe it would happen, and I almost gave up, but it happened. I successfully took my first steps, and I’m proud of myself for the path I’ve taken, and am still on. I’m proud of myself, I did it,” the caption read.
Last month, Regev spoke about her treatment in captivity, recounting in an interview with Channel 12 news: “When changing bandages, when they wanted to see the wounds, they would purposely cause pain.”
“When they were changing my bandages they would give me ketamine and pethidine intravenously so that I wouldn’t scream. But they’re not really pain relievers, they’re muscle relaxants. So I couldn’t respond, but I could feel everything,” she said during the interview.
In the interview, Regev said that, one day, the doctor took a small knife and started cutting into her exposed flesh in the wound, ignoring her pleas to stop. “I wanted to kick him in the face, but he had a pistol and I had nothing, so I shut up,” she said.
Regev also described how her friend Shem-Tov, with whom she was kidnapped and, after five days of separation, held together in captivity, cared for her, calmed her down, and held her mouth so she would not scream, which she had been forbidden to do.
Shem-Tov is still a hostage in Gaza, one of 111 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 who remain there — including the bodies of 39 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas released 105 civilians, including the Regevs, during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Seven hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 24 hostages have been recovered, including three abductees mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, and the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
Negotiations for the release of the remaining hostages, in exchange for a ceasefire and the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, have been conducted on-and-off since the end of the weeklong truce in November.
The talks were put on hold following the assassination of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh last week, according to officials familiar with the matter.
The officials said that negotiations will not resume until Haniyeh has been replaced and Iran has conducted its promised retaliation for the slain chief’s killing, for which Israel has neither claimed nor denied responsibility.
Hamas announced on Tuesday that its Gaza leader, Yahya Sinwar, will replace Haniyeh.
