Released hostage Noralin Agojo says she was held in room with photo of Gilad Shalit on the wall

During her time in captivity, released hostage Noralin Agojo was kept in a room with a picture of Gilad Shalit on the wall, she tells the Kan public broadcaster.

Agojo was taken hostage from Kibbutz Nirim during the Hamas terror assault on October 7 and was released from captivity after 53 days, during the weeklong November truce deal.

In an excerpt from an interview with Kan, which will be released in full during the Passover holiday, Agojo says that upon being abducted to Gaza,  she was initially held in a small room in Gaza in which a picture of Gilad Shalit was mounted on the wall.

Shalit, an IDF soldier, was captured by Hamas in a 2006 cross-border attack and held in Gaza for five years until he was released in 2011 in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian security prisoners.

After a day or so, Agojo was moved to a different location, along with since-freed hostages Irena Tati and Karina Engel-Bart, where she was held until her release.

“Every day was like hell,” she says recalling her time in captivity. “On the first day, there was electricity and a fan, and then there was none.”

As time went on, the three women received less and less food and water, she tells Kan.

They managed to keep track of the passing days, she says, as they would roll up a small piece of toilet paper each day and store it in a cup.

“We talked among ourselves in whispers — when will we be released, what would happen to our husbands and families, whether they would kill us — all kinds of things,” she says. “I thought every day that someone would come in and kill us.”