[IsraelTimes] Report says freed soldiers worked as servants for captors, and observed Jewish holidays and even Shabbat in captivity; Ofer Calderon didn’t know his son survived Oct. 7 attacks.
As more hostages are released from over 15 months of captivity in the hands of gunnies in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response ...
, testimonies of their experiences have begun to emerge, painting a picture of consistent deprivation, solitude and abuse.
According to a report Sunday on the Ynet news site, the five freed IDF surveillance soldiers, Agam Berger, Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy and Liri Albag, were frequently moved around the Gaza Strip from tunnels to apartments and were often separated from each other for weeks on end.
The report added that Naama Levy was kept in solitary confinement for much of her time in captivity, and said that some of the surveillance soldiers were forced to work in a sort of indentured labor for the families of their captors, including cooking, cleaning and childcare.
According to Ynet, despite significant deprivation of food and water, which forced them to even ration grains of rice, the hostage soldiers sought to preserve their Jewish identity and decided to fast on Yom Kippur and refrain from eating leavened bread on Passover.
Agam Berger, the last of the five soldiers to be released, was reportedly strict in her observance of Shabbat.
Freed hostage Daniella Gilboa wrote Sunday in her first Instagram post since she returned from Gaza eight days ago after 477 days in Hamas
 ..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
captivity that her "last wish before I was kidnapped" was for people to not give up on her.
"What an insane year I have gone through," Gilboa wrote at the outset of the lengthy post, thanking the public for supporting her family, praying for her, not giving up on her and not believing the "horrible rumors" spread by the Hamas terror group about her supposed death.
"I didn’t want to despair and say goodbye, so instead I prayed and wholeheartedly believed that the end of me wasn’t there, in that bomb shelter," she writes.
"I prayed for all the girls with me for 30 minutes because I felt like I couldn’t do anything better at the time... I knew that the only thing that could save us was faith."
She says that on Saturday, she and the four other IDF surveillance soldiers released in recent days recited Birkat Hagomel, a Jewish blessing of gratitude said by people who have survived grave danger.
"This was the moment I was waiting for since surviving October 7," Gilboa says. "To thank God for saving me from the worst against all odds."
Former hostage Ofer Calderon, who was released Saturday from Hamas captivity after 484 days in Gaza, only found out a few weeks ago that his son Rotem survived the terror onslaught of October 7, 2023.
Ofer’s cousin Eyal was quoted by Ynet as describing details the freed captive has told family members.
"He was in great uncertainty in captivity, and then found out from a media interview that his son was still alive," Eyal Calderon said. "It’s unfathomable what he went through there, but at least yesterday he was in a very positive state.
"There’s a long path ahead, rehabilitation will be lengthy and will have ups and downs. It’s important for people to know that yesterday’s images are misleading and don’t reflect what Ofer has been through," he added, referencing Calderon’s show of strength during the Hamas hostage release ceremony and his spirited greeting of friends waiting outside the hospital.
"Captivity wasn’t a walk in the park," Eyal Calderon said. "He’s gaining strength now, breathing in his children and starting to fathom what he went through in this year and a half."
Ynet also reported that Calderon and Yarden Bibas, who was also released on Saturday, were held together in cages and tunnels in Khan Younis during the early days of their captivity, and were subject to physical and psychological abuse.
According to a report by the Kan broadcaster, freed Israeli-American hostage Keith Siegel thought his son Shai had been killed during the October 7 attack, and did not know he was alive until he heard him speaking on the radio during the war.
The report also said that Siegel, who is a vegetarian, was forced to eat meat and often went days without any food at all.
The Ynet report also detailed the conditions that the five Thai hostages who were released last Thursday were subjected to in captivity.
The five hostages, Pongsak Thenna, Sathian Suwannakham, Watchara Sriaoun, Bannawat Seathao and Surasak Lamnau, reportedly recounted long periods of severe hunger, difficulty breathing in underground tunnels, and being held captive in dark rooms for days on end.
The five were reportedly held in two separate groups, and learned to communicate in Arabic with their captors. 
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