Freed hostage Keith Siegel’s sister: We kept his captivity from our mother until she passed in December

The sister of Keith Siegel, who was released from Hamas captivity in Gaza last week after 484 days in captivity, says she kept her brother’s captivity a secret from their mother, who died in December at age 97.

“During this whole period, my job was to make sure she didn’t know he was in captivity. I did everything I could so that she wouldn’t know. I thought about it every morning, all day, and when I went to bed. She mustn’t know,” Lucy Siegel says in an interview with i24 news.

“Keith will always be the baby of the family, he was given special treatment because he is the youngest of four siblings,” she says.

Keith and his wife Aviva were kidnapped from their home on Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists attacked their community of 1,000 people, killing 62 and kidnapping 19 to Gaza. Aviva was released in a week-long ceasefire in November 2023.