Former hostage tells MKs to stop war, bring back captives: ‘Blood will be on your hands’

Former hostage Arbel Yehoud tells a Knesset Committee that she was tortured and starved in response to Israeli military action in Gaza, speaking out against the government’s plan for a renewed offensive and demanding that Israelis call a general strike and take to the streets until the 58 remaining hostages return home.

“You should know that when Gazans who were related to those who were holding me were injured by IDF actions, I would be badly beaten and sent to solitary confinement for long days with no food fit for human consumption and with a hygiene level comparable to concentration camps in the Holocaust,” she tells the Knesset’s Constitution Committee.

Yehoud, 29, was freed in Khan Younis along with Gadi Mozes, 80, on January 30. Her partner Ariel Cunio remains captive along with Cunio’s brother David.

“Does it seem logical that I’m the one who needs to be here to shout for the freedom of my beloved Ariel, his brother David or the rest of the hostages,” she says.

Yehoud urges the politicians to take steps to stop the war, hoping they recognize the human cost of their decision to press ahead and expand the offensive rather than agree to a ceasefire and hostage exchange deal.

“As someone who was there, I know negotiations are the only way,” she says, adding that she and other former hostages cannot recover until everyone is brought back.

“Ministers and MKs, look at me and see who you are abandoning and who you have chosen to sacrifice as a solution to the Gaza problem. There are 58 Israeli citizens like me who are not just suffering but are also dying,” she says. “Your hands will be covered in their blood and the blood of the soldiers if you do not stop this war.”

“And to you, citizens of the nation, I call on each and every one of you to take to the streets and stop normal life in the country until all the captives are returned,” she adds.