Hostages’ stories: Gadi Mozes paced 7km a day in tiny cell, soldiers rationed grains of rice
Report says captives exposed to media heard their families talking about them, knew they ‘hadn’t been forgotten’; Mozes did not learn his daughter was alive until he was freed

Gadi Mozes, isolated, paced 7 kilometers a day in his two-square-meter room; female surveillance soldiers counted grains of rice to fairly divide the scant food they had between them; one hostage convinced her captors to film a propaganda video of her, hoping to offer her family a sign of life.
These are some of the stories emerging as newly freed hostages begin to recount to their families the hellish 15 months they spent as captives of Gaza terrorists, stripped of their autonomy, enduring abysmal conditions and uncertain of their fate as hour after hour ticked excruciatingly by, over the course of more than 470 days.
Channel 12 news reported Friday night on some of those harrowing experiences and the hardships, struggles and moments of bravery they entailed.
Mozes, 80, who was freed on Thursday from Hamas captivity, told family members that throughout 15 months he was never with other hostages. The first Israeli he met was 29-year-old Arbel Yehoud, as they were brought together a few days ago ahead of their joint release.
For some 70 days of his captivity, Mozes was in complete isolation, locked alone in a dark room, he said. He was moved between several apartments over the course of the war, and was not held in tunnels.
Mozes knew his longtime partner Efrat Katz had been murdered during the attack, and mourned her. But he did not know what had happened to his daughter Moran until being freed (Moran survived and met him Thursday upon his return).

For much of his time in captivity, the octogenarian was held in a two-square-meter (2.4-square-yard) room, in which he regularly paced some 7 kilometers (over 4 miles) every day, counting the tiles on the room floor and solving math problems to pass the time and keep his mind sharp.
His glasses were broken during the kidnapping, but after two months he managed to get new ones from his captors and was able to read two books.
At a certain point, Mozes said he decided to live one day at a time, and not think of release.

Once every five days or so Mozes was given a bowl of tepid water to shower with, using a cup to pour the water over his head. He insisted on shaving himself, despite it being a messy and painful affair, as it was important to him not to neglect himself. Mozes lost some 15 kilograms in captivity, according to the network.
At some points, he feared he would be executed. In one instance, he was held in a hot pickup truck for 12 hours under Red Cross offices in the Gaza Strip, he said. Though he hoped he was being released, he was only being moved between hiding spots.
Mozes described the chaotic handover in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis to the Red Cross on Thursday as moments of “mortal fear,” and said he worried that he and Arbel Yehoud would be lynched by the mob around them.
Amazingly, Channel 12 said Mozes told his captors that when the war ends and there is peace, he hopes to come to Gaza and teach them to farm.
A separate report by Channel 13 news said Mozes also told relatives how encouraged he was to see the weekly demonstrations calling for the hostages’ release.
“The few times I was able to see television, you don’t know how much it strengthened me to see the rallies on Saturday evenings and to understand the nation is fighting for us and our return home,” he was quoted as saying.

Mozes and Yehoud, who were both abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, were freed along with five Thai nationals kidnapped during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 massacre. IDF surveillance soldier Agam Berger was also released Thursday at a separate handover in northern Gaza, days after four comrades she was abducted alongside were freed. Another three Israeli hostages are slated for release Saturday, under the ongoing deal with the terror group.
‘Such hunger can’t be explained’
According to the Channel 12 report, some of the hostages heard family members talking about them in the media, offering them hope.
One told her family: “They told us no one is fighting for us, that [Israeli] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu only wants war and doesn’t care about us. And then we heard an interview of a relative of a hostage and understood that we hadn’t been forgotten.”
One of the women hostages met another captive in a Gaza hospital and only then realized there were other hostages besides her.
Some didn’t know what happened to loved ones on October 7 and only found out when returning home.
Conditions in captivity were hard. “There was a point when we barely had any food at all,” one of the released surveillance soldiers told relatives. “We all sat around a plate of rice and tried to divide it equally between us, to the last grain. You find yourself counting. Such hunger can’t be explained.”
Liri Albag “would boost our morale. She told us stories all the time and told us to imagine things from our normal lives, like what we’d order at a restaurant we’d sit in.”

Albag has told family it was she who suggested to her captors to film a recent video message of her in captivity, so that her family would know she was alive, Channel 12 said.
The clip was sent out by Hamas at the start of January, shortly before the terror group reached a ceasefire deal with Israel.
Albag said she appealed to Hamas’s desire to increase public pressure on the Israeli government to strike a deal.
“I told them my dad is strong and is being heard [in Israel],” she recounted. “And they went ahead and filmed me.”
The network also reported additional quotes from Albag.
“For some of the time, I heard radio and knew exactly what was going on. It wasn’t easy realizing it was going to take a long time [to return]. We tried to stay optimistic and manage things,” she said.
“At one point, the terrorists wanted to take me to the tunnels and I wouldn’t do it. I told them I refused. I couldn’t stand the quiet and loneliness there,” Channel 12 cited Albag as saying.
“We must bring all the hostages out quickly,” she stressed. “Every minute is an eternity.”
Thai hostages struggled to breathe in tunnels
Details also began to come out Friday about the captivity of the Thai citizens who were freed Thursday: Thenna Pongsak, Sathian Suwannakham, Sriaoun Watchara, Seathao Bannawat and Rumnao Surasak.
They were among 31 foreign nationals kidnapped in the Hamas attack who were working in Israel, many of them as farmhands in Israel’s agricultural heartland near the Gaza border, reportedly including some on Nir Oz.

The five met Friday with Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, during which, according to the Ynet news site, they recounted being held in underground tunnels, where they struggled to breathe and battled hunger as their captors did not always provide food.
They said they spoke mostly in English with the terrorists holding them, though they also spoke a little Arabic, which they learned to understand while captive in Gaza, where they were divided into separate groups of two and three people each.
“You are strong. I wish you and your families a good life, health and freedom,” Sa’ar was quoted as telling them.
Thai Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampongsa is slated to arrive in Israel Saturday to meet with Sa’ar and the freed hostages, the Foreign Ministry said. The five men are expected to fly home to their families, who have been celebrating their return from Gaza, in about 10 days.