Hostage’s dad readies to embrace him, but says ‘I don’t know what kind of son I’m going to get back’

Ilan Dalal, the father of hostage Guy Gilboa-Dalal, says that the first thing he will do when he meets his son after he is released from captivity is “hug him, smell him and tell him that the nightmare is over.”

Gilboa-Dalal was taken hostage by Hamas terrorists from the Nova rave on October 7, 2023. He is set to be freed tomorrow as part of a deal between Israel and Hamas. In the past few months, his family received information that he was starved and kept chained.

“We know Guy as he was two years ago, but after he went through two years of suffering, of starvation, of humiliation, both physical and mental abuse, we don’t know how these things are going to affect him,” Dalal tells reporters in a virtual press conference. “I don’t know what kind of son I’m going to get back, and I hope that he won’t be so harmed that he can’t rebuild his life.”

The father says that in the last video of Guy released by Hamas, he saw “despair in his eyes.”

“We saw him not the way we knew him,” he notes. “It was a different Guy, so we fear that he has suffered from mental problems or physical problems, but this will all be checked by the medical staff of the hospital that will receive them. And I hope it will be okay.”

The press conference is organized by Amplify, an organization that describes its mission as “strengthening Israel in the global fight against extremism.”