After Gaza captivity, freed Israeli hostage sees no peace ‘in our generation’

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JERUSALEM (Reuters) -When Tal Shoham walks through Kibbutz Be’eri in southern Israel where he and his family were abducted by Hamas militants on October 7, 2023, he says it feels like a graveyard filled with the horrors of the attack.

While remembering the calmer days before the assault, he has little expectation that U.S. President Donald Trump’s pressure on Israel and Hamas to strike a deal will deliver a lasting peace with the Palestinians any time soon, even as negotiators gather in Egypt for talks to end the two-year Gaza war.

“All this neighbourhood that once was so peaceful and beautiful, you know, all destroyed. It’s like the evil things that they did here, that the terrorists did here, is like covering everything here,” Shoham said.

His thoughts for the future are defined by his experience in captivity. He sees anti-Israeli feelings running so deep in Gaza and the region that it rules out co-existence any time soon.

“I believed that peace is something that we can achieve. But after I saw the magnitude of hatred that they grew up upon and they are growing their children upon, it’s really clear that at least in our generation it won’t be possible,” he said.

GUNMEN GRABBED SHOHAM, HIS WIFE AND THEIR TWO CHILDREN

Shoham spent 505 days in captivity in Gaza, a period he recalls for the cruelty of his Hamas captors and the resilience of fellow Israeli hostages still being held by the Palestinian militants. He was released during a truce in February.

He, his wife Adi and their two children were grabbed by gunmen in the bloodiest single day for Jews since the Holocaust.

Hamas-led militants overwhelmed border defences and dragged him and 250 other hostages back into Gaza in violence that shattered Israel’s image as an invincible military power.

The assault, in which about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were also killed according to Israeli tallies, triggered a massive military retaliation that has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to health authorities there.

ANXIETY DESPITE ISRAEL’S MILITARY VICTORIES

Shoham spent the first eight months of his captivity above ground. But in June 2024 he and fellow hostages Guy Gilboa-Dalal and Evyatar David were taken to the street below in disguise.

He said their guards escorted them for about 15 minutes before blindfolding them and taking them into a tunnel and then a tiny dark chamber where another hostage, Omer Wenkert, was held.

He said he expected to stay “in this tomb, for eternity.”

Their cell had concrete walls, a sandy floor and an iron door. Four mattresses were on the ground, and there was a hole for a toilet. The air was thick. They struggled to breathe, he said.

    “We were treated like animals. I mean, even animals won’t be kept in such inhumane conditions, but this is the way they treated us,” he said.

EX-HOSTAGE REMEMBERS BEATINGS, PSYCHOLOGICAL TORTURE

Their guards sometimes beat the four men. At other times, they tormented them by telling them to choose which of them would be imminently shot, he said.

Gilboa-Dalal and David remain hostages in Gaza. The images Hamas released of an emaciated David in August caused widespread shock in Israel and abroad.

    “And I’m really afraid for their lives. You know, there are 20 living hostages still in Gaza in the hands of those animals,” Shoham said.

Tal was the first to be taken by militants on October 7, 2023. He was dragged through the window of a safe room, led through the kibbutz and put into the trunk of a car.

It was only after more than a month in captivity that he learned his wife and children had survived the attack but were also kidnapped, along with his mother-in-law, his wife’s aunt and her daughter. His father-in-law, Avshalom, was killed.

Shoham’s wife and children were released in the first deal with Hamas in late 2023. He was freed in the second and last deal in February 2025.

SHOHAM’S SON ASKED HIM IF EVERYONE WAS GOING TO DIE

Standing in the charred safe room from where he was kidnapped, Shoham recalled how his son, 8 at the time, asked if everybody was going to die. Shoham was focused on survival.

A Hamas commander opened fire on a bullet-proof window with his AK-47 assault rifle.

“Now, I knew that he cannot hurt me yet, but after a few bullets he will reach a hole in the window and then we will need to surrender because it’s game over for us,” he said.

“He would be able to throw grenades inside and to put his Kalashnikov in this hole and just shoot us all.”

As Hamas militants walked him along a street he saw two bodies of people he recognised who had been shot in the head, before being taken to Gaza.

(Writing by Angus McDowall and Michael Georgy; Editing By William Maclean and Janet Lawrence)