Report: Gadi Mozes was held alone for his entire 482 days in Gaza, convinced captors to bring him books, kept a diary

Former hostage Gadi Mozes, 80, was held alone for the entire 482 days he was held captive by Gaza terrorists, the Kan broadcaster reports.

The moment he met Arbel Yehoud yesterday, who was also said to have been held alone for the duration of her captivity, was reportedly the first time he saw an Israeli hostage since he was kidnapped from his home on Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, 2023.

Prior to their release yesterday morning in a long, chaotic process in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group issued a propaganda video showing Yehoud and Mozes embracing.

Both Mozes and Yehoud are believed to have been held by Islamic Jihad, a Hamas ally.

The Kan report adds that Mozes had managed to convince the Palestinian terrorists holding him captive to bring him books in English to read and that he had been able to take daily walks outside where he was being held.

He was also said to have kept a diary, which was taken from him before he returned to Israel yesterday, in which he kept track of the days and noted the times he was moved around the Strip.

He occasionally saw news footage from Israel, including clips of his family members advocating for his release, according to the report.

Mozes’s partner, Efrat Katz, was killed during the October 7 onslaught, apparently by IDF fire. Her daughter Doron Katz-Asher was kidnapped along with her granddaughters Raz, then aged 5, and Aviv, then 2. His ex-wife Margalit Mozes was also kidnapped from her home on Nir Oz. The surviving four were released in a hostage deal in November 2023.

Mozes and Yehoud, along with IDF soldier Agam Berger, were freed yesterday under the first stage of an ongoing hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas, which provides for 33 hostages to be released in exchange for up to 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Five Thai nationals were also released from Gaza yesterday, though not as part of the truce deal.