Former hostage says she underwent surgery without anesthesia

‘I thought I’d die in Gaza’: First testimonies from freed hostages released

Former captives quoted saying they ‘were scared to death’ during Hamas transfer in Gaza City; some hardly saw daylight in 471 days; all of them knew what happened on October 7

Doron Steinbrecher (in black) reunites with her family at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, January 19, 2025. (Maayan Toaf/GPO)
Doron Steinbrecher (in black) reunites with her family at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, January 19, 2025. (Maayan Toaf/GPO)

After 471 days in captivity at the hands of Hamas terrorists in Gaza, three Israeli women who were released on the first day of a hostage release-ceasefire deal with the terror group have begun to share details of their ordeal, according to reports in Hebrew media on Monday.

Romi Gonen, 24, Emily Damari, 28, and Doron Steinbrecher, 31, were handed over to the Red Cross by masked Hamas gunmen in Gaza City on Sunday afternoon, surrounded by what appeared to be a chaotic crowd of mainly young men, many of them in Hamas uniforms and masked.

“We were scared to death at the transfer point, from the combination of the armed terrorists and the Gazan crowd,” one of the women was quoted as saying by Channel 12 news, in comments approved for publication by the Israeli military censor.

The former hostages said that they were only told they were set to be released from Gaza hours before they were handed over.

The three were the first hostages to be released in the initial stage of the three-phase accord, which provides for a total of 33 captives to be freed over 42 days in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.

Gonen was kidnapped from the Supernova rave near Kibbutz Re’im on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists burst across the border into Israel, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages, mostly civilians. Damari and Steinbrecher were both kidnapped from their homes at nearby Kibbutz Kfar Aza during the terror rampage.

Hamas hands over hostages kidnapped during its October 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel, to members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Gaza City, January 19, 2025. (REUTERS/via Reuters TV)

Channel 12 reported that the women said they were not held alone during their time in captivity, and that they were moved to various places in Gaza, including the designated “humanitarian zone” in the south of the Strip.

Some of the hostages said that they hardly saw the light of day over the past 15 months, spending most of their time in captivity underground.

They said that from time to time, they were exposed to television and radio news, including protests calling for the government to secure the release of the hostages held in Gaza.

“We saw your struggle,” the former hostages were quoted as saying. “We heard our families fighting for us.”

Supporters and relatives of Israeli hostages held captive in the Gaza Strip since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught demonstrate in Tel Aviv on January 19, 2025. (Menahem Kahana/AFP)

They were also said to have pieced together the details of the brutal Hamas attack that sparked the war, and they knew that their families had survived, though many of their friends were killed during the assault.

“I didn’t think I would come back. I thought I’d die in Gaza,” one of the hostages was quoted by Channel 12 as saying.

The report added that while the women sometimes received medicines they required, one of them underwent a medical procedure without anesthesia during her captivity.

Both Damari and Gonen were shot during the terror attack in which they were kidnapped. Damari lost two fingers as a result of her injury.

Other former hostages who were released in a weeklong truce in November 2023 said they underwent surgery without anesthesia.

Grateful families

Also on Monday, parents and siblings of the three released hostages held a press conference at the Sheba Medical Center, where the women were airlifted on Sunday evening, and said that they were all doing well. They also expressed their gratitude to the government, the negotiators, US President Donald Trump, and the Israeli people for their support and assistance in bringing their loved ones home.

This handout photo shows family members of the three released hostages speaking at Sheba Medical Center, in Ramat Gan on January 20, 2025 (Paulina Patimer/ Hostages Forum)

“Doron is smiling, she is here, and we are starting to deal with her recuperation. She is okay. She is strong and brave,” said Yamit Ashkenazi, Steinbrecher’s sister.

She added that her sister was surrounded by family, friends, and by all of Israel, and, in particular, thanked their Kfar Aza community for its ongoing support.

Ashkenazi herself survived the Hamas massacre along with her two small children, aged 3 and 6 at the time, hiding in their sealed room for 21 hours without food or water.

Ashkenazi also relayed a message from her sister, asking Israelis to keep rallying and calling for the return of all the hostages.

“The fact that I returned home doesn’t mean the others don’t have to come home,” Ashkenazi quoted her sister as saying. “Go out into the streets. We have to complete all stages of the deal.”

Doron Steinbrecher (in black) reunites with her family at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, January 19, 2025. (Maayan Toaf/GPO)

Tom Damari, the brother of freed hostage Emily, thanked Israel Defense Forces soldiers and reservists who fought Hamas in Gaza, as well as those who fell in battle “so that we could hug Emily again.”

He also thanked the government, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, government hostage envoy Gal Hirsch, Emily’s friends and family, and God, ending his comments by saying, “Am Yisrael Chai” (the nation of Israel lives).

His mother, Mandy Damari, a British citizen, reported that her daughter was in high spirits, telling reporters in English that Emily is “an amazing, strong, and resilient young woman.”

She thanked former US president Joe Biden in addition to Trump and other leaders and negotiators around the world, as well as the British government for its ongoing support.

“To the thousands that have messaged our family the last 24 hours, all of you have played a role. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts,” she said.

Relatives of released hostages speak to the press at Sheba Medical Center (from left): Yamit Ashkenazi, Simona Steinbrecher, Mandy Damari and Tom Damari, January 20, 2025. (Paulina Patimer/Hostages Forum)

The final speaker at the press conference was Meirav Leshem Gonen, a familiar face in the struggle for the hostages’ release in the past 15 months, who named and spoke about her daughter’s friends who were killed on October 7, 2023, at the Nova desert rave.

She thanked both Israeli and world leaders who helped put the ceasefire in place, and mentioned bereaved families, IDF soldiers, and their families, as well as those wounded in the ongoing violence, saying she wants to support them all.

“We are the Israeli nation, a special nation that wants peace,” she said. “There are 94 more of our brothers and sisters in Gaza, we are brave and courageous and we will get them back. Let us hold hands and win.”

Hamas confirmed in an official statement on Monday that the next hostage release under the nascent ceasefire deal will take place on Saturday, January 25, as initially scheduled, despite a previous claim from the terror group’s prisoners’ office.

Four hostages are set to be released this coming Saturday. Over the following four weeks, three hostages are to be released each Saturday, with a final group of 14 on day 42 of the ceasefire.

Meirav Leshem-Gonen, mother of Hamas hostage Romi Gonen, speaks about Hamas atrocities on October 7 to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on June 19, 2024. (Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations in Geneva)

It is believed that 91 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.

Hamas has so far released three hostages during a ceasefire that began in January. The terror group released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that.

Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 40 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors.

Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the body of an IDF soldier who was killed in 2014. The body of another IDF soldier, also killed in 2014, was recovered from Gaza by Israeli special forces this week.

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