‘Medieval torture’: Former hostages plead with Trump to free remaining captives

A group of freed hostages on Monday evening, described their brutal and inhumane experiences in Hamas captivity, and begged for US President Donald Trump to push for the release of those still held hostage by terrorists in the Gaza Strip.

Speaking in English at a press conference, released captive Keith Siegel, a native of the US, recounted the horrors he experienced in Gaza and said he is “eternally thankful to President Trump for prioritizing the hostage crisis since day one of his presidency, and bringing me and so many others home.”

Siegel was kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7, 2023, with his wife, Aviva, who was freed in November 2023. He was not released until February 2025, during the ceasefire that began days before Trump was inaugurated.

Siegel said he thinks “constantly” of those still being held hostage, including twins Gali and Ziv Berman, who “have been part of our lives since they were little boys,” IDF soldier Matan Angrest, whom he met in captivity, and Omri Miran, “a man of immense strength and an unbreakable spirit.”

Seigel said that they “have been held in captivity for 18 agonizing months, over 570 days ripped away from their families, their dreams and their lives.”

“Every second of every day, I’m reminded that we cannot truly be free while our people remain in captivity,” he added.

Siegel said that he carries “the heavy burden of knowing what those still in captivity endure every single day.”

“I survived horrors I could never have imagined — starvation, dehydration, relentless humiliation. I witnessed sexual assault, trapped 130 feet underground in suffocating tunnels,” he said. “I saw acts of medieval torture that still haunt me.”

“These echoes of suffering have never left me — and for those still held captive, they are not echoes, they are reality,” he added.

“Thanks to President Trump’s decisive action, I was reunited with my family,” Siegel said, asking the president “to continue his commitment. Apply pressure. Restart negotiations immediately and secure a deal now, before it’s too late.”

Omer Shem Tov, who also was freed during the ceasefire earlier this year, recounted spending 505 days in Gaza “without freedom, without sunlight, with very little food and water, without basic necessities.”

He lived, he said, “every moment in fear.”

“A few days after I was released, I had the honor of meeting President Trump in his office,” Shem Tov said. “I told him then, and I believe it with all my heart: He was sent by God to help save us.”

“Because of his leadership, because he made the hostages a real priority, I was able to come home to my family,” he continued. “For that, my family and I will always be grateful.”

Shem Tov then urged the US president “to do it again.”

“Use every tool, with everything you have, bring the rest back. Every day matters. every life matters. Even for those of us who made it home, the feeling can never be complete while others are still left behind,” he said.

Freed hostage Doron Steinbrecher, who was also kidnapped from Kfar Aza and released in January, said at the press conference that it “was clear that the release of myself and my fellow hostages happened thanks to the election of President Trump, thanks to his immense efforts, and the efforts of his team.”

Steinbrecher recounted her time in captivity, “spent underground, trapped in the dark, suffocating tunnels with no daylight, no sense of time, no insurance I would survive another day.”

She is grateful for her freedom, she said, “but my heart is heavy, because 59 hostages remain in captivity, 59 families trapped in [an] endless cycle of hope and despair.”

“Please don’t stop,” she urged the president. “Continue to fight for them, just as you fought for me. Continue to be their voice, just as you gave me mine.”

Naama Levy, an IDF observation soldier who was kidnapped on October 7 from the Nahal Oz military base and freed in January, said at the press conference that she was not treated as a “human being” while in captivity.

Levy recounted watching her friends and comrades be “brutally murdered before my very eyes” before she was “dragged violently, as the entire world watched, thrown into the back of a terrorist jeep, treated not as a human being, but as a trophy.”

Images and video of Levy’s kidnapping were widely shared as news broke on the morning of October 7, 2023, and a video of her being dragged, covered in blood, into the back of a jeep became a symbol of the horrors of the Hamas-led attack and massacre.

“During every one of those 477 endless days in captivity, I clung desperately to a single hope: to see my family again,” she said.

The freed captive recounted meeting Trump in the White House, praising him for achieving “what many thought was impossible.”

“We the survivors know you are a decisive and irreplaceable force saving lives,” Levy said, addressing Trump. “There is no greater achievement, but the work is not yet done.”

“Mr. President, please, help bring them home,” she concluded.

Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are still holding 59 hostages, including 58 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023. They include the bodies of at least 35 confirmed dead by the IDF.

Though Israeli and Hamas delegations were both in Cairo last week for talks on a potential ceasefire deal, the negotiations appear largely stalled.

During the six-week ceasefire that began in January, 30 Israeli and Thai hostages were freed and the bodies of eight slain hostages were returned to Israel. But talks on the next stage of the deal broke down when Israel sought to extend the first stage and Hamas refused, sticking by its demand that further stages must include an end to the war.