Daughter of ex-hostage Ohad Ben Ami: ‘Nothing could have prepared me’ for ‘terrible images’ of his weak state

Ella Ben Ami, whose father Ohad Ben Ami was released from Hamas captivity on Saturday, says she fell to the floor and called out, “I’m sorry!” when she first saw the images of her father, his gaunt figure and shoulders, his fragility and fallen face.

“Nothing, nothing prepared me for when I saw his face and his body,” says Ben Ami.

“The cries in the room, ‘Oof oof oof’ we screamed, because what you all saw, the terrible images, is my father,” says Ben Ami.

She says that their family has only just begun to hear the horrors of Ohad’s captivity in Gaza.

“We have all our life to hear,” says Ben Ami, turning to smile at her mother, Raz Ben Ami, who was released in a hostage deal in November 2023.

Ben Ami calls attention to the 76 hostages still in Gaza.

“They are deep in the tunnels, deep in the dark, deep in hell, deep in the hands of the terrorists,” she says. “Now with my father home, I realize how much worse it is than I imagined.”

Ben Ami says they won’t give up on the fight to bring the hostages home, and asks the government and cabinet to find a way to cement the second stage of the hostage and ceasefire deal as soon as possible.

She says her father wants to join the struggle for the hostages as soon as he is able, as he “can’t imagine leaving any hostages behind in the conditions that he himself was in.”

“My father is home, after a year and four months,” says Ben Ami. “He broke into a run, the run of a winner, when he saw us. He feels he got a second chance at life.”