Hostage Hell

Interesting article about a recently freed Israeli hostage, Tal Shoham. Captured in the initial Hamas attacks, he was held until last month in Hamas tunnels.

Shoham said he and three others were kept in a 120-square-foot tunnel shaft for more than 200 days, nearly half of the total 505 days he was held captive by Hamas.

120 square feet… call it a 10x12foot room.  Not exactly luxurious. 200 days underground with no outside air, sun, exercise? Except the walk to get there.

To get there, he told me he was led on a two-and-a-half hour walk through “the metro,” shocked at its labyrinthine sprawl beneath the Gaza Strip. He said the main line of the metro — which Shoham says Hamas told him connects northern and southern Gaza — is likely still intact, and every day teams dig new branches and shafts to the surface. His Hamas captors said you could walk for five days from Gaza City in the north to Rafah in the south, according to Shoham. He said Hamas was very proud of the work.

We saw news reports not long after the Israelis struck back in which they were flooding some of the tunnels. Sound like they should be doing that 24/7, doesn’t it?

On about day 300, he was moved from one tunnel by ambulance to another tunnel where he described a large IED placed to collapse the tunnel if the Israelis entered. There, he wound up 60 feet underground living in a 50 foot long 3 foot wide tunnel room with three other men.

The four of them slept (head to toe), defecated and nursed the wounds of their beatings there for nearly a year. At one point, Shoham said they were given a deck of cards, but could only play two at a time because the tunnel was too narrow for the four of them to sit in a circle. It took Shoham a month to acclimatize to the lack of oxygen, and much longer to the claustrophobia of living in the coffin-wide tube, he said.

Shoham had gone from 179 pounds to 110 pounds during his time in captivity, he said. The four men counted grains of rice to ensure they were divided equally. Shoham said their guards told them they were being purposely starved so that, upon their release, the images of their skeletal frames and sunken faces would inflame the Israeli public and force the Netanyahu government to broker a deal.

Hamas was counting on liberal Israelis to be outraged at Netanyahu by skeletal captives and demand a brokered deal.

When the world saw hostage Eli Sharabi, released on Feb. 8, there was an outcry.  ABC News

In the last two weeks of his captivity, Shoham was fed so much he gained 14 pounds back.  When he was released, he was suffering from advanced scurvy… apparently his 6th century worshipping captors weren’t up on 18th century medicine.

For those protesting in favor of Hamas, this should be required reading.

Category: Israel, Middle East