On October 7, 2023, Aviva Siegel was taken hostage by Hamas terrorists with her husband, Keith Siegel, and held in captivity. Aviva was released on November 26, 2023, and forced to leave her husband behind. Upon her release, Aviva met with lawmakers and leaders to share her story and fight for Keith's freedom, which came on February 1, 2025. Aviva shared her testimony with the USC Shoah Foundation in 2024 as part of the Contemporary Antisemitism Collection, which documents and preserves antisemitic experiences since 1945.
CREW: Okay. INT: Running? Today is October 21, 2024.
I'm Natalie Mann, interviewing Aviva Siegal for the USC Shoah Foundation.
We're at the Hostage Family Forum in Tel Aviv, and the interview will be in English.
AS: And just be careful. If you go backwards, you'll fall. INT: Yeah. [SIGHING] AS: Thank you. Okay.
INT: So, first of all... AS: Sorry. INT: Thank you very, very much for taking the time to be with us today.
It means a lot to us and we're here to hear anything it is that you want to say and if you want to stop at any time, stop. AS: Okay.
INT: And let's start with you telling us a little bit about yourself before October 7th, 2023.
AS: I'm 63. I was born in South Africa, and I came to Israel
when I was nine, nine years old. I've got a twin sister and a younger sister,
and we came to Israel, to Kibbutz Tzora.
And when we arrived in Israel, after a short while, we went to ulpan
for Hebrew and we went to Karmiel.
And I remember that as quite a difficult time because we all got sick.
I had hepatitis B... INT: Wow. AS: ...and we had lots of lice.
My hair was cut off and they changed my name to Aviva.
I was [?Adrienne?] before that and it seemed like everything was different.
Nothing belonged to me. Everybody wasn't quiet at that time.
We came to Israel with another family that came with us with three girls
that were good friends of ours. So that helped a lot. But it seemed like that year of coming from South Africa to Israel,
it was very, very difficult for for me trying to speak Hebrew and from coming
from a class that I was one of the good ones, coming to a class
that you don't understand anything. I just stopped studying when I was nine years old.
I decided it's not for me if I'm not the best. And that's what happened. I did at school what I wanted and what I didn't wanted,
I just didn't do. So I don't know how I finished all the years of school,
but I can tell you that it was very, very, very difficult to be somebody that doesn't understand at the beginning,
it like, took all my confidence away and changing my name.
We lived in a beautiful house in South Africa and everything was just beautiful.
Lots of money, lots of everything you need. And then you come to Israel in a small, small, tiny apartment.
It's hot. And there wasn't any air conditioning. There was hardly a fan while it was hot.
We used to pour water on the floor and lie on the floor to sleep because we couldn't fall asleep, it was so hot.
We weren't used to the, to the weather. The weather just changed while we came here. It was so hot for us and we weren't used to it.
And I'm lucky that I had my twin sister that helped me a lot because she was there all the time for me
and she was wonderful. INT: Were you identical or...
AS: No. She's got blue eyes. I've got brown. And she's left handed. I'm right handed.
INT: Wow. AS: And she's got straight sort of blondish hair. So I've got curly hair and my hair is brown and we don't look the same.
INT: Wow. AS: Yeah. Very different.
INT: And school? And she stayed here and everything? Like you had similar lives staying in Israel and...
AS: Well, my sister, when she was grown up with three kids, she moved to Spain.
And she lived in Sevilla for 24 years. INT: Wow. AS: And, but she used to come all the time to visit.
Some of the times here, she used to come like three or four times during one year.
So we saw quite a lot. And that was lovely. But of course, I would have loved her just to stay in Israel and have cousins
for my children that were far away. But that what-- That was, you know, that's life.
But she's back. She came back just shortly before the seventh.
And on the seventh she became my children's mother. And just today, we were sitting with my girls...
[CLEARS THROAT] ...all of us together, without my sister, and one of my girls said: "You remember when Mom and--
Mommy, Mommy and Daddy weren't here? And it was such a hard time. And Fiona, she was like a mother.
She cooked for us. She cleaned for us. We didn't even feel like doing anything. And she did everything for them.
And she was with them for the whole seven weeks and two days that I was, that I was in Gaza. INT: Wow.
AS: And it's strange because when I was in Gaza I knew that. I had that feeling that she became their mother.
And I'm sure that my that my kids didn't like it sometimes, you know, when she bossed them around, but it was wonderful.
She really, really saved their lives by being here for them. We've got a very, very strong relationship, just like many twins,
I'm sure, all over the world. INT: Amazing. AS: Yeah. When she had her baby in the middle of the night, I woke up with a stomach ache.
When I had my babies she woke up in the middle of the night having a stomach ache and not knowing what happened.
She was in Japan and she was robbed. And I woke up in the morning and I called my mom,
and I said: Something happened to her. INT: Wow. AS: Yeah.
INT: Very, very... The bond was amazing. Okay. So sorry I caught you in the middle of your story.
So you came to Israel when you were young and you were talking about your childhood here and then...
AS: Yeah. And then Keith, I met Keith when I was, I think, maybe 18 years old.
Yeah, I was 18 years old. I met Keith and I just looked at Keith for the first time,
and I fell in love with him. It was the way, not only the way he looked, it was the way that he spoke.
He's such a gentle, sweet, loving person.
And I don't know exactly what happened, but it just happened.
And all I did for the first two weeks after I met him, I used to sit
and wait for him just to pass by. Just for me to just look at him. I was so much in love that...
it was lovely. But then he went back home because he was from the States
and I didn't see him for maybe seven months. And we didn't have any contact at all because I didn't even ask him
to keep in contact with me because we hadn't got to any stage. It was just like me staring at him and feeling all those feelings.
And then after seven months he came back for his brother's wedding and I was invited for the wedding because his brother's wife
is from Kibbutz Tzora, where I come from. And I was sort of a friend, those days, so I was invited for the wedding.
And then I saw Keith again at the wedding and fell in love again with the same person.
And then I looked at him and I said: Okay, you're going back home in two weeks time. How about coming and staying with me just for a little bit,
just for a couple of days? And that's what he did. He came to Kibbutz Tzora and after a couple of days,
he called his mom and dad and said: I'm not coming home, I'm staying. I fell in love.
And he stayed. And he was written down to university. He didn't study in no university in the States.
He stayed in Israel. And very shortly after that, we decided we're getting married.
I was 19 years old. INT: He didn't-- Were you in the army or...
AS: I was in the Army. INT: Mm-hmm. And Keith was 21. INT: Mm-hmm. AS: And his parents, sorry, thought we were crazy.
His father is a professor of public health and he used to teach
in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. UNC. And he said: Sorry, when you want to get married,
I have to lecture in the university. So those are the times that I won't be able to come for the wedding.
So I don't exactly know until now because we didn't ever talk about it.
If he thought or they thought that we too young to get married, but I think so. We were very, very young.
I was 19, Keith was 21, and we got married without his parents...
INT: Wow. AS: ...on Kibbutz Tzora. A week after we got married we went to North Carolina,
to their house, and we had a wedding there, and we had just such a great time.
We both worked in McDonald's. I'm talking about 43 years ago.
He was in maintenance and I worked at selling the food
and I just used to stare at Keith most of the time... INT: [LAUGHING] AS: ...because I was still in love
and it was just lovely. We both worked in the same place and we earned a little bit of money.
And when we earned enough money, we decided we're going to go for a trip. So his parents gave us their car.
It was a Mercedes, a good car that you can put the seats all the way backwards.
So we traveled for two months. We went from North Carolina up to Canada, through Canada, down the coast,
all the way back in two months. We slept most of the time in the car because we didn't have that much money.
INT: [LAUGHING] AS: But I remember we had lots of fun. It was like just the best time of our lives.
It was lovely. INT: This is like the '80s. AS: It was a long time ago. Yeah.
It was very, very special. And for me it was special being there with his parents
because I got to know them. We were there for nine months and living in the same house.
So, and they're lovely people. His mom is still alive. She's 97 years old. INT: Wow.
AS: And when we were in captivity. Keith said that the first thing that he wants to do when he
gets out is to go and visit her. So when I got out of captivity three weeks later I was in the States
going to talk to Biden to tell him that he has to free Keith out.
And in my mind, I said to myself: Should I go and visit his mom for him or for me or for her?
And then whenever I thought about it, I said to myself: It's going to be too difficult.
If she ever thinks that Keith isn't there with us, with me, and she'll ask anything, what am I going to say?
Because we didn't want her to know that Keith's kidnapped. INT: Oh, so she doesn't know? AS: She does not know.
Whenever there's something, any interview in the states of me, or me on TV,
we tell them, and they don't let us see TV. [PAUSES]
So he's waiting. And he doesn't know that she's still alive. But I'm sure that she's waiting for him.
INT: [SIGHING] [UNCLEAR] come out soon. AS: Yeah. [PAUSES]
INT: [SIGHING] So... AS: So we moved from Kibbutz Tzora after we came back from the States.
We lived on Kibbutz Tzora for a while. Keith and I both worked together again with the cows and had fun.
We used to milk them at night and then sleep the whole day.
And we just had so much fun together, working in the same place.
But then we decided to move from Kibbutz Tzora to Kibbutz Kfar Aza.
That's a kibbutz much younger. We wanted to be with younger people because we were young.
I was pregnant when I came to Kfar Aza. I was 22 years old when my first son was born.
He was born on Kibbutz Kfar Aza. His name is Shai. He turned 41 two days ago.
[PAUSES 16 SECONDS] [SIGHING]
And then we had three girls after Shai. Gal, that's 38. Ilan, is 33, and Shir is 28.
28. INT: So one son and three girls. AS: Yeah. Hmm?
INT: One son and three girls. AS: One son and three girls. INT: Mm-hmm. AS: It's the best.
The son looks after the girls and he's like the king of the girls.
And it's just lovely. And they really had such a good relationship with him.
They loved him so much. Gal, especially Gal. She was close to him.
There was like two months, two years and two months between them and they were just the best friends ever.
The best friends ever. And then Ilani was born five years later, and gal became sort of like
a mother because she was five already. And then she was born five years after Ilan. Gal was ten already. Shai was 12.
And we just had fun together. I loved, I loved them being small little children and...
[PAUSES] I wouldn't mind even having a baby now.
[LAUGHING] INT: I've been to Kfar Aza and it's, you know, from the beginning of our
interviews, people were telling me what a beautiful, beautiful place it is. And it really is a beautiful, beautiful place.
AS: So Keith and I arrived at the beginning. We stayed in a very, very small house. INT: Mm-hmm.
AS: While Shai was with us there was not even a bedroom for Shai. There was one bedroom and like a small living room.
We didn't even eat at home because the kitchen was so small. We used to eat only in the dining room or at work.
Shai, we had to give Shai to the baby house to to be looked after
because I had to go back to work after six weeks. INT: Wow. AS: I hardly knew or understood
what it's been like, a mother? Six weeks Shai was in the baby house while I was working.
At that time I worked in the dining room because I wanted to go
and breastfeed him every once in a while so they let me work there
and then Gal was born two, two years and two months later, and she went into the baby house also after six weeks.
INT: Wow. AS: And I went to work. But Ilan and Shir, It was different.
With Ilan and Shir I stayed three months at home. It had changed already. And it's much better like that.
Much better. It was very-- It was too soon to go back to work. INT: Yeah. AS: And to leave my baby.
INT: Six weeks old is... [LAUGHING] AS: Yeah. I remember starting, starting work with Gal and Shai and like,
they call you to come and breastfeed, and I used to run, I couldn't wait.
[LAUGHING] Yeah. INT: Yeah, it's not like you had cell phones then so...
AS: Yeah. INT: ...calling you in the... AS: Calling me on the, on the, on the telephone. Not on the cellphone, on the [?cellphone?].
INT: Yeah, they would call the.... AS: Yeah. INT: Wow. That's amazing.
AS: So Keith and I have been living on Kibbutz Kfar Aza for more than 40 years... INT: Mm-hmm.
AS: ...and Kfar Aza is beautiful, like, you know.
And then after a short while, maybe a year and a half, we moved to our house.
That was big. It was like a big house for us. Shai had his bedroom, we had a bedroom, and we had a living room.
We had like a big, it felt like a big kitchen and we felt comfortable enough to like, cook and bake and make things to eat.
Not like the other house that was too small. There was hardly a kitchen and there wasn't even a fridge, I think.
We didn't have anything in the house. It was just, those days it was different. So we moved to a bigger house and we had a fridge and we had a kitchen
and an oven and it felt like a home. But we were very, very young, like I say.
And so everything was like... In a different way. Like you start...
It was just like a start of a life being on Kfar Aza. And when we came to visit Kibbutz Kfar Aza for the first time,
we made a mistake and landed up in Gaza. INT: Wow. AS: In those days the road was open. I remember like there were two soldiers
like, sitting next to the entrance of of Gaza. And they were just talking to each other.
They didn't even look at us. And they didn't even tell us: You're going into Gaza. And we didn't really realize that we were going into Gaza because
the beginning of Gaza there was no houses. It's like, starts afterwards. And then I looked at Keith and I said:
Keith, it looks like that we're not in Kfar Aza. It looks like we're in Gaza.
So Keith said: Okay, I'm going to ask this person that's driving the tractor how to get out of here and go back to, get to Kfar Aza.
Because we got lost in Gaza. I remember him getting out of the car, and I was just so scared
because it was just so different. Everything seemed different. So I was scared.
So when Keith left the car I locked the car that nobody will come inside the car while Keith is outside the car.
I can't understand why I did something like that. I was so scared. So Keith went and he spoke to the person on the tractor and he told us
how to go, like a shortcut to Kfar Aza. I remember shaking, and that's, I'm talking about more than 40 years ago.
We never did that again. And I always used to say: How come the soldiers didn't stop us
and tell us you're going into Gaza? But nobody did. So I'm sure that people just went buying things there,
maybe went to eat, maybe went to the sea. But very shortly after that, nobody went into Gaza anymore
because it started to be dangerous. I remember people like talking about it, that they don't go there anymore,
and they used to go there. They used to fix their bicycles and go and buy some fruit and vegetables.
So that was... And you know that going back into Gaza it seemed like the same,
like nothing had really changed. The houses aren't finished. It's all cement.
Everything looks old. Everything looks dirty.
And the road isn't really a road with, like, with pavements, like next to the houses.
Gaza hasn't really developed in those 40 years. Hardly any.
Only like a couple of times when we went to houses that were like a building,
it didn't look the same. But most of Gaza looked exactly what it looked like 40 years ago.
INT: Wow. AS: People with donkeys.
Like just even donkeys just walking around. Dogs walking around. They look like different kind of dogs.
Just like I saw in Gaza when I went this time.
INT: So what what transpired on October 7th, was it something you want to talk
about the day before, the weekend? Because it was a holiday. AS: Keith and I were on Haifa.
We went to visit my daughter Shir. INT: INT: Mm-hmm. AS: And there was a festival there.
So we went to see different kinds of music. CREW: [UNCLEAR]
AS: We went to see different kinds of music. I remember that Keith really had such a good time
because there was Indian music and he loves India.
He loves the food. He loves the music. He loves the people. He loves everything about India.
And on Friday evening, Shir and her fiance Yuval,
they were invited to go and sleep at some party at the sea
with their friends near Haifa. So I told Keith: We're not going to stay. Let's go home.
And Keith said that he wanted to see somebody play jazz or something like that,
that he really liked. And I told him that I want to go and visit somebody that was really ill.
People that I really, really liked that were older people, that he had cancer
and my sister said that he's not well. So I decided that we're going to go and visit him before he dies,
and we're going to go home and we'll sleep at home because it's closer to home than close to Haifa.
So we went to visit them and we arrived on Kfar Aza at 8:00 in the evening.
And when I arrived in Gaza I remember telling Keith that I'm so sorry, because we should have just stayed in Haifa because he
wanted to see the jazz festival. So I felt guilty by not staying because he really, really wanted to.
And there we were in Gaza because of me. Because I wanted to go home.
[PAUSES] And then we went to sleep not knowing anything.
It was very quiet. Kibbutz Kfar Aza, all you hear when it's quiet, the birds.
But at 6:30 in the morning, the first rockets came from Gaza and we ran into our little shelter.
We didn't even close the door or the window. We just bent down and we said: Okay, there'll be one or two and we'll be out.
So that's what we did. We bent down and after two of the rockets it was quiet for a second
and we stepped out. And from the window of... The window next door, next to the shelter, little shelter that we have,
we could see Gaza, and we could see all the rockets, just like everybody saw on TV.
I could see it live and feel it. INT: Near [UNCLEAR], on that edge? AS: Very close.
Yeah, we live next to the gate, so we live-- INT: You're like a kilometer and a half. AS: Yeah, we can see Gaza and we can feel Gaza.
So the rockets were coming out of Gaza and the house was shaking.
And you can hear the whistling. And I remember looking at the rockets going all over.
And then there was another alarm and we were back into the shelter. And then we closed the window.
We closed the door and looked at each other and said:
It sounds, it sounds like, it feels like the end of the world. And there was rockets coming over Kfar Aza all the time.
So there was Red Alert all the time. And it just felt something really bad is happening.
And then somebody from the family, my sister's daughter asked:
Is everything okay? And I didn't even manage to answer her because we were sitting,
we were scared. And somebody from Kfar Aza wrote that she can hear a noise that she's
never, ever heard before on a WhatsApp group that I belong to, and that was the Hamas terrorist killing people already.
That was very early in the morning. And then somebody wrote that there's terrorists on the kibbutz.
And shortly after that, somebody wrote on the same group that
Ofir Libstein had been killed... INT: Mm-hmm. AS: ...and I remember looking at Keith and saying to myself and saying to Keith:
I can't believe it. People are being killed.
I was shaking and Keith was trying to calm me down and saying that we're safe. And I said: But we didn't even lock the window.
So he locked the window, and he locked the door, and we sat like,
in a place that if they shoot, they won't come, the bullets won't hit us from the window and not from the door.
And Keith said that we're safe. But I was shaking because it just felt like the end of the world.
And then we wrote to the family and asked: What's happening in Israel? Because we were disconnected from internet.
Nobody answered. And nobody answered for a while. And that quiet time of nobody answering made me feeling
that something really bad is happening. And then she wrote, my daughter wrote that we're
the strongest people on earth. And that sentence went straight into my heart and I understood
that something really bad is happening. And my other daughter, Ilan, wrote that we mustn't stop being in contact with
her because she's very worried about us. So I understood from that also that she's got something
to be worried about, but nobody told us. And then my sister said: When you can get out of there and come to Tel Aviv.
And I thought that maybe that's what we should, maybe we should do that. Maybe we should go to our car and just leave.
But there were rockets all the time. All the time. And I was scared of the rockets. And it didn't calm down.
So there wasn't like, a time that I could relax and say: Okay, let's go to Tel Aviv.
And I'm lucky because if we would have gone out we wouldn't have been alive now.
So I was sitting there with Keith, and Keith was trying to relax me while I'm hysterical already.
And I told him: I don't want to hear anything, so don't tell me anything about anything that anybody writes about the kibbutz.
And unfortunately, Dorit Kislev, that she used to write to everybody what's happening.
She was killed very shortly after that. So nobody from the kibbutz wrote anything.
We didn't know that we need to hold the door or put something against the door, or...
We didn't know that it's not locked from the other side. We thought it's locked.
And Keith was very calm while I was shaking and he was really trying to calm me down.
And then we heard the Arabic shouting, the Arabic from outside,
the Hamas terrorists screaming. But shortly-- Before that, sorry, Shai, my son, that he was 40,
he wrote to us that he's holding his fingers and that he can hear the Arabic outside.
So I was very worried about Shai because we got disconnected.
And I took that feeling that my son is dead with me.
So the Arabic was coming closer and closer to the house and the shooting was coming closer.
And they started shooting the house. And then I remember them shouting inside my house and the steps
that they made next to the door of the little shelter.
Keith and I just took our hands together and we were like, holding our hands while both of us were shaking.
And I remember looking in his eyes and we were scared. We were very, very, very scared, both of us.
We didn't even know that they're going to can open the door, but it was just a feeling that it's the end of the world again.
And then the door just opened and 15 terrorists tried
to shove themselves in while-- I remember looking at them while I stood up and I started screaming,
and I remember them looking and they were like some of their faces, like, just trying to see who they caught this time.
And while they were screaming at us, Keith put his head on his knees
and his and his hands on his head like that and I understood
that that what saved us. That's what saved our lives. Because my neighborhood, all the way forward,
she was killed, he was killed, she was killed, they were killed, they were kidnapped, and they were kidnapped and they were killed.
So I am very close to [UNCLEAR] and to Smadar, and Idan, and their neighbors
and to [?Chen?] and to all the other people that were murdered in my neighborhood.
INT: You feel like it's because you didn't put up a fight? AS: Yeah. So they pulled Keith and they tore his shirt while they pulled him.
And everything was done in a very brutal way. They pushed us. I was with my panties.
Keith was with his panties, and there was clothes on the bed. And I remember them taking pants and, like, throwing it at me. [GESTURING]
That I must put them on while I was shaking and scared.
[PAUSES] But I went to my bedroom to take a different pair of pants
because they weren't my pants. And while I was walking he took me and he pulled me backwards
and like, choked me with my, with my, with my shirt that I had on.
And then I understood that I can't do what I want to. And I saw that all the cupboards were open and the window was open.
They must have come in from my bedroom, standing on my bed,
and opening the cupboards. Maybe to see if any of us are soldiers, if we've got clothes.
Or I don't know what they were looking for, but I think that that's what they were looking,
and, or for guns or whatever. And by the terrorists doing that to me I think that I shut off.
I wasn't really standing and walking.
I was like, floating, if you can call it. [GESTURING] They took us and they told us to put the sandals on.
And we're lucky because there was, there was kidnapped people
that came with their feet full of glass. So we were lucky that we had sandals on, and they pulled us out of the back
of the back window of the house while I couldn't even to the ground.
So I nearly fell. And they did the same to Keith. INT: The "mamad", it's like connected to the back of the...
AS: It was like, the room next to the "mamad", next to the little shelter of the house, and they put like a chair, but I had to, like, step out to pull myself down.
I'm... I was 62 years old then and I remember that it was very difficult
and I remember him like, pulling me down and me nearly falling. So that was another time that I was like, you know, scared of them
because they were very, very, very brutal. And I forgot to tell you that inside the little shelter they started
to shout, if there's a [HEBREW], a child, because there's a crib for my grandchildren.
And I said that there's no [HEBREW], but they picked up everything and they opened the cupboards and shoved everything out of
the cupboards to see if we're hiding. I don't know what they were thinking because we do look like older people.
I mean, we couldn't I couldn't have a baby. And everything is done by shouting and pushing.
They pushed us and Keith fell and they broke his ribs and they were shooting us.
And one of the bullets hit Keith's hand and took off like part of his skin. It was deep, but not deep enough to get to the bone.
So he was bleeding and he was so... And when we started walking very slowly because Keith said:
We need to run away, they're going to take us to Gaza. And I said to Keith: How can we run away?
Because they had knives in their hands and guns in front of us while they were shooting around us.
And they were all in such a brutal way. But Keith was saying: We need to run away. We need to run away.
And they took us in Keith's car because they took his keys, but they couldn't, they couldn't figure out how to put the car on.
So, Keith had to do that for them. And just before he did that, he said: I'm going to do it wrong
that we won't be able to go in the car and then maybe we'll be able to run away. And I said: Keith, don't even think about it.
They're going to kill us. So he did listen to me, and I'm lucky that he did listen to me,
and they pushed us into Keith's car while one of the terrorists sit next to me,
and he had a knife that he put on the driver's seat in front of me,
like, in front of my face. And the other one that was sitting in the front with a gun
in front of both of our faces. And Keith was going on: We need to run away. We need to run away. They're going to take us to Gaza.
And I looked at Keith and I said to him: So they'll take us to Gaza. So we'll see Gaza.
And I remember myself saying that, just like I said that now, I wasn't really here.
I was out of it, really completely out of it, in a complete and utterly shock.
And I know I was in a shock also because of that and also because my hands were wet, sopping wet,
because I was holding Keith's hand. I've never, ever had that feeling. And my mouth was dry, complete and utterly dry.
And I understand by people that I've told them that that's what happened,
that that's what happened when you're very, very, very scared. So they drove us and in two seconds we were in Gaza.
And on the way out of Kfar Aza, we could see the houses on fire already, and lots of lots of groups of Hamas terrorists walking around
and shouting and shooting. And when we got to Gaza we saw lots of families standing out of their houses
and clapping hands and shouting [ARABIC], shooting in the air.
And Keith and I just wanted to cry and scream, and it was the happiest day.
It was like a party for them. They were the happiest people ever.
Happy. Just happy. You could feel it. They took us to a house and I remember going up a couple of stairs
while the door was open and a couple of Hamas terrorists smiling,
not even talking, just smiling. And then we walked just a couple of steps
and I remember, like, looking down into the hole that goes underneath the ground.
And there's two terrorists there, and I'll never remember their smiles. They were looking at us and smiling and just waiting for us.
And they told us to go down very quickly. And I remember myself shaking... [GESTURING]
...while the ladder was shaking with me... [GESTURING] [PAUSES]
Jumping down, waiting a second for Keith, and then starting walking, walking and walking, walking down
underneath the ground. It's dark. But like I said before, I wasn't really here.
I was floating somewhere. And then we got to like a little arch...
[PAUSES] ...with three mattresses and we were told to sit there.
And there was a chair from plastic, and I asked him for the chair because my back was sore from everything that I
went through and I have a back problem. And luckily they gave me the chair to sit on and they brought a chair for Keith.
So we were sitting while Keith's ribs were broken.
His pants had blood on from his shot, looking at each other
and didn't know what to think.
And I remember after seconds of being there, I said to myself:
What am I doing in Gaza? What is Keith doing in Gaza? What are we doing in Gaza?
We were in our pajamas, taken from a house in such, in such a shock.
A couple of minutes later, somebody came from Kfar Aza
and I didn't recognize him. I hadn't seen him for a couple of years because he grew up.
But the minute he told me who he is, I recognized him.
And he was shaking. And he had blood on him, on his shirt and on his pants.
His legs were full of blood. And he was barefoot. [PAUSES]
INT: Can you say who he is? AS: And he was in complete and utterly shock. I took his hand and started talking to him...
and tried to hug him, to help him, to help myself. To help Keith while Keith was in terrible pain already from his ribs being broken.
And we started talking. And then the terrorist told him that he needs to, like, check his body
to see if he's not cut anyway. But he was bleeding.
He was wounded and he had glass in his feet because he was barefoot.
And then maybe five minutes later a family came in.
Chen, Agam, Tal and Gal.
And the terrorist did the same with his hand, like sit. [GESTURING] But Chen couldn't sit.
She was standing and she said: They killed my daughter. They killed my daughter.
She fainted. They they killed her in front of my eyes. And I remember saying to her: Maybe she's not dead.
An ambulance will come and take her and she's going to be okay. Don't worry.
But Chen said: No, Aviva, they killed her, and they killed my husband.
And I know they did. They killed them in front of them. So Keith and I looked after the kids.
I looked after Agam, and hugged her and tried to calm her down.
And Keith spoke to Gal and Tal.
With the other boy that was with us from Kfar Aza. And we just try to help each other.
There was blood all over and we just didn't understand what we were doing there.
Everybody went through so much and we just tried to comfort each other
by talking because we were allowed to talk then. And it helped, and we got very, very close to each other.
And I remember that I was too scared to go to the bathroom because it wasn't where it was.
You had to walk with one of the terrorists and he had like,
a torch and it was like dark to walk there. So Agam said: Aviva, whenever you need to go to the bathroom, I'll take you.
Even though she didn't have to go, but she took care of me because she could see that Keith was in pain.
And she really helped me by that. [PAUSES]
Nobody ate that day. They brought us a packet of pitas, and a box of cheese.
I remember the next day after Chen made pitas for children and they ate.
I couldn't eat. I could hardly drink, even though I didn't. My mouth was completely and utterly dry, but I didn't want to drink
because I was scared that I needed to go to the bathroom and I had to ask somebody to come with me. I felt like a baby.
[PAUSES] And we were there for a couple of days.
And then in the middle of the night they told us to come, and they moved us and told us to sit, like in the corridor
of underneath the ground, on the sand. And I remember the sand in my toes after 51 days.
I brought the sand back in my toes. That's how filthy dirty we were.
[PAUSES] From there Keith and I were moved 13 times.
We met lots and lots of terrorists. Each one of them were worse than the other one
and it became too difficult to handle so many times.
And what helped me to survive in Gaza is that I used to say to myself:
You're going to go through worse. Prepare yourself. You're going to go through worse. You're going to go through worse. And that's exactly what happened.
And then while we were in houses of the Hamas terrorists that were with us.
It was in their houses. I was scared all the time. I was scared of them.
They used to sit with their guns in front of us. They used to threaten us, shout at us, torture us in every way they could.
If it was at 3:00 in the morning, we had to just sit and wait
and nothing really happened. We had to get dressed, looking like Arabs. I wore a hijab and Keith wore a "galabiya" and a white hat
and they put like [HEBREW]. What's [HEBREW]? INT: An ID... AS: An ID in his pocket
as if he belongs to Gaza. If he walks on the road and they said: Women don't need it because you don't--
Nobody checks the woman. They just check the men. So if he if they check him they'll see that he has it in his pocket.
INT: Wow. [PAUSES]
AS: And the bombing were very close to us and I was very, very scared.
I used to shake. And at the beginning, two girls came to be with us when we
were separated from Chen, Tal, and Agam. And we were we were separated from all of them, from Kfar Aza.
And then two girls came and were with us. So one of the girls was also very, very scared of everything.
I had a partner because Keith was with his ribs broken, so I couldn't really touch him. Even give him my hand because it's like, you know,
the bombs used to fall, like, all over us. And I used to like, jump. So I used to jump and, like, hold somebody's hands
because it was hard for me to, to not do that. So one of the girls was very scared at the beginning, and we used to like,
hold hands and we used to, like, sit next to each other all the time to hold hands at the beginning
and, like, look straight into our eyes and try and relax ourselves. And what I used to do is that I used to sing to myself a song in English.
I used to say: One, two, buckle my shoe. Three, four, knock on the door.
And it helped me to relax a little bit because I was shaking. And then after doing that some of the times I used to say the names
of the children that were sitting on my table. I'm a teacher for two years, two years old, and I remembered them sitting
with me around the table, eight of them. I used to go through their names, so that really, really helped me.
I used to say [?Yael?], Romi, and go through all their names like...
And then I remember like after a couple of weeks there was one of the names that that I forgot about, that I didn't even remember, that she sits next
to the table that I couldn't remember. I couldn't understand how I couldn't remember her name. But that's what I used to do, like, all the time.
And after maybe four weeks there was a huge explosion and the cupboard
that was against the window fell on us. A four door cupboard fell on us... INT: Wow.
AS: ...and they ran and they picked the cupboard up. It didn't hit us. We were very, very lucky because we had our knees like, with us.
We were like, not lying down. We were sitting so it didn't hit us, but it could have.
And then they tied the cupboard to the window that it won't happen again.
But I used to shake all the time. There were explosions all the time. And then I remember one of the times I looked at the two girls and Keith like,
and I said: How come you're not scared? Aren't you scared? And they said, no, they've gotten used to it.
So I said to them: How come I'm the only one that's still scared?
So Keith said that I must say to myself: Every time it happens, it's far. And you're not the target.
It's far and you're not the target. So that's what I used to do, and it really helped me so much.
So I used to start with: It's far, you're not the target, when there was the explosions and every house that we went to,
the missiles used to come out from underneath the ground to Israel,
bombing Israel, while the whole ceiling moves and there's more cracks on the wall.
I used to count the cracks and you get the feeling that the ceiling is going to fall on you.
So whenever Keith said: I need to go to the bathroom, I used to shake and say: Keith, no, no, no, don't go near,
don't go near because I was so scared. And if you do go, then go for a second and come back.
And I used to shake when he went to the bathroom. It was like the worst thing that happened.
I was just so scared all the time. I didn't sleep, I couldn't manage to sleep from--
For the 51 days that I was in Gaza. I didn't sleep because I was scared.
I hardly ate. I lost ten kilos. I had infection in my stomach shortly after we got to Gaza.
[PAUSES] And one of the times I was really, really sick.
I had a high temperature because the girls and Keith could feel it. And I could feel that I was shaking.
Just like when you know that you've got a temperature. And I felt really, really bad. I wanted to bring up.
And I was sick, my throat was sore, I wanted to bring up and I didn't want to eat. And the terrorist saw that I'm not eating.
So he decided to force me to eat. So I had to eat in front of him while he forced me to eat.
And I remember myself just not understanding what kind of world this is
because they had all the control that they wanted on us. Whatever they wanted, happened, but I was so scared that they would know
that I'm not feeling good. So I had to hide myself and pretend that everything is okay.
While I wanted to just lie down all the time, not eat.
And it was difficult because I was scared that they would kill me or take me or take me to a hospital with Arabs and separate me
from Keith because I'm sick because they would be scared that they would get sick.
And it took me a while. I think I was sick for at least a week while I was forced to eat.
It was difficult. Most of the time I used to try and give Keith some of my food
because he was losing weight and I was getting worried about him. I couldn't see myself losing weight.
I could feel that I was losing my weight. But on Keith I could see that he was losing weight because he loses weight very quickly.
So I used to try and give him my food while nobody was looking,
and while they brought like a tray of food, the girls were so hungry
they used to start eating very, very quickly. And Keith is very polite and gentle and he chews slowly,
and sometimes he'll talk while he eats and not only eat.
And it got to a stage that the food just vanished. I hadn't eaten anything hardly. Keith hadn't eaten hardly anything.
And I used to tell Keith: Eat, Keith, eat, eat, because you're not going to have anything left.
And then what we did, I did, when the tray used to come. I used to, like, move some of the food and say:
This is for Keith because he's losing a lot of his weight. And the girls used to say like, it's only first course.
It's not even a meal. It was just a little bit of, of food. So they were really, really, really starving.
And I had an infection in my stomach. So I had a stomach ache most of the time. So I didn't really want to eat, but I hardly ate for those whole 51 days.
And, like I said, all the time, worse things happened.
And one of the worst things for me was when they tortured Keith and they tortured the girls.
For me to try not to feel and try not to cry
when they did that and try and vanish from what I saw or what I felt,
it was just the painful pain that anybody can imagine because...
INT: What kind of things were they doing? AS: Hmm? INT: What kinds of things were they doing?
AS: One of the times we were, we was told to be quiet and Keith said one word,
so they threatened him. They brought their handcuffs and, like, shaked it to him and said that they're
going to handcuffed him and started screaming at him in such a brutal way.
I thought they were going to kill him. And then Keith was very, very sad after that because all he did,
he said one word and we weren't allowed to really do anything.
We had to just sit and wait for the time to pass. And, you know, it's difficult day after day, 24 hours to move the time.
And I remember myself moving the time, but mostly thinking
what will happen if Keith will have to go to the bathroom again and the ceiling will fall on us or fall on Keith.
And what will happen if it will fall on my legs? And I'll have to go to hospital. And there's no room in the hospital because they told us
that there's no room in hospital. And if they're going to starve us again what is going to happen to me
if they don't give us any water like they don't. If I'm going to dehydrate. What will happen to one of the girls that doesn't want to drink?
Because the water was disgusting and she just didn't drink
until I told her that I don't want to see her being taken away to hospital because that's what's going to happen to her. She's going to, she's just going to dehydrate.
She didn't drink. The only thing that she did drink is at the first couple of weeks
they brought us a little bit of tea, and I used to give them my tea because I wanted her to drink,
and that's the only thing she drank, a little bit of tea in the morning.
She didn't go to the bathroom, sometimes for 24 hours. Wow.
AS: And I told her that she, that she has to. That she just has to. And one of the times they took her into the bathroom
and shaved him looking like an Arab. They took all this off and left only this... [GESTURING]
...and shaved under this underneath his arms and said that he needs to shave his intimate place.
And when he came out after being in the bathroom for at least an hour, he wanted to cry.
And he said that he's never, ever been humiliated like he was with the Hamas terrorists that must be maybe 22, 23 years old that did that.
And I came and I stood next to him, and I remember looking in his eyes and he was just so sad.
I mean, thinking, what more are they going to do to us? And then the four terrorists just standing in front of him and laughing.
They made a joke out of him. Well, we wanted to cry.
And then one of the times that my back was caught and Keith's back was cold because you're not allowed to move. You're not allowed to stand.
You're not allowed to walk. And he asked to walk a little bit.
To move his body a little bit to, to calm down his body a little bit. It was so...
And they wouldn't let us and they wouldn't let Keith.
And then one of the times they called us to sit in a different room,
and we had to sit there the whole day, and he was just so much in pain.
He wanted to lie down, and he showed him that his ribs are broken, that it's sore, and he just wants to lie down for five minutes, he begged.
I nearly started crying and then I begged him too, and I said: Why not? Just give him five minutes?
That's all he wants. Five minutes just to relax his pain a little bit. And he wouldn't. And Keith was in so much pain.
So they did control us in every way they could. We weren't allowed to hug.
We weren't allowed to touch, we weren't allowed to talk. We weren't allowed to stand and move our bodies.
We had to ask for permission to go to the bathroom, and we had to say that everything is okay
with our finger up like that all the time. [GESTURING] [ARABIC] in Arabic, while nothing was okay, nothing was okay.
And one of the times I said to myself: I'm going to say that nothing is okay. I'm sick of... I'm tired playing the game.
So I did this like this... [GESTURING] ...and that was a mistake because I got screamed at.
Screamed at. And all I did is that. [GESTURING] That nothing is okay, that I'm not okay now.
We weren't allowed to feel. I had to hide myself crying. I lay down on the mattress, on a filthy, dirty mattress.
They gave us cushions with stains. Old. That smelled terrible.
We would just... The smell in the room was just disgusting from everybody
because we didn't take any showers. [SIGHING]
INT: Did they talk to you at all? Like, engage in conversations, trying to--
AS: One of the terrorists in one of the houses asked Keith and I to teach him a little bit of Hebrew, like to stand, to sit, to keep quiet.
And we taught him. He brought like a piece of paper, and he wrote down the words in Hebrew.
Some of them knew a little bit of English, but just a little bit of English, not much. And during the seven weeks and two days that I was there,
the 51 days, there were two terrorists that spoke Hebrew. One was the driver, and one was a terrorist that used to come
down to the tunnel that I'm going to tell you about in a second. And he spoke Hebrew a little bit with us.
And it was very strange for us because they used to talk in English,
a couple of words like, not many.
So one of the times that they moved Keith and I we were with one of the girls and we were going in Gaza I remember quite a while,
and then they took us to a house and took us down underneath the ground.
And I remember them shouting at us that we need to go down quickly
while I was shaking and Keith was shaking, not knowing again, where are we going. That was like in the middle of the time that we were there in Gaza.
[SIGHING] And they like, pushed us down, shaking again with the ladder.
And the terrorist with the torch walking in front of us while we had to figure out where to put our next step going down underneath the ground.
And I remember walking a lot, a lot, while it was wet.
The wall was wet and it was slippery and there was no oxygen.
We were huffing and there was no oxygen while we were walking down. And then we arrived and I remember the Hamas terror saying: Don't worry, city.
But I didn't see a city and I didn't hear anybody. But we were walking a lot.
And he said that it was 40 meters underneath the ground, and we arrived to a little arch that was open, and there were two mattresses
that were new with nylon on them, and we opened them up and we brought another mattress that was
the three of us, and that was the size of the little place that we had. And there was like a lid on the top of the ceiling that wasn't working so well,
and we asked them to leave us a torch because if we need to go to the bathroom
that wasn't there, we need-- Because it's pitch dark, you can't see anything. And I remember the two terrorists arguing between them because they
didn't want to leave it for us. And at the end, he left us one of the torches, luckily, and two terrorists
were sitting very close to the open arch and talking and talking.
And then suddenly, after a couple of hours, it was quiet. And I remember looking at Keith and saying: What do you think?
They left us here all by ourselves? So the girl with us went and she like peeped to see if they were there.
Maybe they were just lying down and quiet. There was nobody there. They just left us there alone.
We didn't have any water, hardly no food, and we were just left there.
And I remember saying: Okay, we're lucky we can talk. So at the beginning we were sitting and talking a little bit,
and very shortly after talking we could feel that we don't have any oxygen,
that it's just not coming into our bodies. INT: Wow. AS: And we lived there alone and we lay down and we slept a little bit.
I remember that I slept a little bit. Not much. And waking up and terrorists coming down, and they just came to see
if we're okay for five minutes and left because there was no oxygen there for them
and no oxygen for us. So they just left us there again. And I remember like, looking at Keith and thinking to myself:
Are we going to die? Are we going to die? Yeah. And we're just lying and we could hardly talk and we didn't have hardly any water
so we went for a sip for each one. If one person needs to drink water, everybody, the three of us take one sip.
Only one sip. And we were out of water. And then I looked at the packets,
there were a couple of packets on the floor, and I said to Keith and the girl with us:
That orange packet is mine when I need to go to the bathroom.
And she said to me: You're crazy, Aviva. I don't know what happened to you, but you're crazy. I'm not going to do that. And I remember saying to her: That's mine. I want to live.
And Keith didn't say a word. And I was looking at the packet and I was saying to myself:
Okay, I'm going to just do it if I need to go to the bathroom because I want to live. And I could hardly breathe.
I didn't need the packet because I was dehydrated and nobody needed packets
because we didn't go to the bathroom. And we were just lying there and then Keith looked at me and he said:
I feel that I don't have any air and I can't breathe. And he was... [GESTURING]
And I felt the same. He just had the guts to tell me that he doesn't feel that he's got any air coming in.
So I looked at him and I said: Keith, just lie down and try and breathe.
Just lie down and try and breathe. Because I had to help him. He was like, getting very nervous about not having any oxygen.
INT: So scary! AS: And... And I remember the three of us just lying there.
We couldn't talk. We couldn't pick up our bodies. We couldn't say a word. We were just concentrating in trying to breathe.
And then, you know, the thoughts come. Are we going to die? He's Keith going to die before me?
How's it going to be? Is it going to be slowly? What am I going to feel? And I could feel that I don't have any oxygen.
And I could see that Keith's in the same situation like I am, and the girl with us.
And we just lay down thinking we're going to die.
And that's a feeling. And then, after more than a couple of days, the terrorist came down
and he said: Very, very bad. And I remember waiting for the next sentence to come.
What is he going to say? That it's very bad because there's too much bombing on the top.
We could hear the bombing even though we were underneath the ground, 40 meters.
We could hear the bombs. So he said: Very, very bad. No oxygen.
And I got up and I sat from lying down and I looked at him and I said: Me, one more day I'm going to be dead... [GESTURING]
...and you're going to have to carry me all these stairs.
And he looked at me and he did this: [GESTURING] Sorry. No house.
And he left, and we were just there lying and trying to figure out if we're going to die.
We couldn't even talk. We had no energy even to say a word.
And then that same day he came down and he said: Get dressed. I found a house.
I got dressed and Keith got dressed, and the girl, in two seconds. And I said: I want to be the first one to be running up the stairs.
I needed the oxygen so badly. And the girl with us said she was in a complete and utterly shock by the way
Keith and I walked up those stairs. I remember the terrorist saying: Do you need a break?
And I said: No, no, no, no, no. I just wanted to breathe.
And I'll never forget that first moment of breathing the air. It was like being born again.
It was just like being born and I remember saying to myself. Air. Air. [GESTURING]
And we looked at each other, the three of us, and we smiled and felt lucky that we were breathing air, just air.
[PAUSES 5 SECONDS]
And then they took us to a little place that was like a waiting place.
And we were just so happy because we were breathing. But they didn't tell us that they were going to take us
to these terrorists that are the worst monsters in the earth. They used to torture us all the time. All the time, all the time.
They used to starve us. While they ate in front of us. They used to come out from the next, from the room next door
chewing while they didn't bring us anything to eat. And one of the days after 24 hour-- After 20 hours at least,
the girl with us asked: When are we going to get some food? She did this: [GESTURING] When food?
And he looked at us without even a blink and he said: it takes a long time to make food.
And all we got after 24 hours is a half a piece of pita that was dry,
that you need water to take it down your throat. And I remember saying to myself: Okay, tomorrow you'll get maybe a little bit more.
But I didn't, and Keith didn't. We didn't. We got another half a piece of pita.
And that half a piece of pita I cut in half. I put it in a tissue and I started hiding pieces of pita
for Keith because he was losing weight. And then Keith said: I'm not going to eat them.
You have to eat them, Aviva. You're losing weight too. And I said: No, Keith, I'm keeping them for you.
Because one of the days when he when he got up to go to the bathroom, he nearly fell. He was so weak and we didn't know what's going to happen.
So I hid the pitas. And then the girl after so and so days, she said that she's going to throw them all away,
that we're not eating them. So I said: No, don't. I'm keeping them. I'm keeping them for Keith.
So we never threw them out. They just stayed there. We were moved out of that place, but the pitas stayed there.
And then we had to beg for water. And one of the days I told Keith that I'm not feeling good.
That please beg once more. And he said: But you've seen that I've begged so many times.
Because he begged. He begged for hours, hours, for water while they were drinking in front of us.
So he took the bottle and he hold the bottle just like that... [GESTURING] ...for him to understand that he has to bring us water now.
And what did he do? He just looked at us and did this, like: [GESTURING]
And then after maybe 15 minutes or half an hour, he took the bottle in a brutal way, filled it up with water in a tap and threw it at us.
[PAUSES] And then while we sleeping, I was covered with a blanket,
with a blanket, and I took one of my foot out because I was hot, just to cool my body down a little bit,
and they used to dress themselves, make make it like, darkish,
and they used to dress themselves that the only thing that you can see is their eyes because they put, like something on their face and like a bandana, a black bandana
on their head and like dark clothes while it was dark. All you could see were the eyes.
And in such a brutal way he came and he covered me with a blanket and started screaming, screaming at me with his body.
And then it was another moment for me to say: Whenever he does that just put your eyes down
and don't even pick them, pick them up. Don't even look at him. Just let him act and do what he wants to.
And that's what we did. Keith and I and the other girl, because we were scared. And one of the times they told the girl they like: Put the three mattresses--
It wasn't three mattresses, sorry. It was one mattress with a thin little mattress... [GESTURING]
...that you put over a mattress because there were two mattresses and something thin that he put over it.
Because I asked him them because my back was sore. The next morning he said: Sorry, I need the mattresses.
And he took the mattresses. So we were left for to lie down on something like this. [GESTURING] With Keith's ribs broken, my back and Keith's back cold.
Keith's 65. I'm 63. He didn't even care. It was cold.
Keith was with shorts and short-sleeved shirt. It was raining outside so he had to be covered all the time with the blanket
and lie down most of the time because he was cold and they, like, closed us.
They brought like a sofa and they closed us, and they closed the window, the curtains that we couldn't hardly any, see anything.
So we weren't allowed to talk. And we had cards, but we couldn't play because we couldn't see the numbers, it was so dark,
and we had to sit there for day after day and day after day, not say a word.
And one of the nights there was this huge explosion and the girl with us,
she like, bent over me to to ask Keith, what does he think it was, how close it was, because they both caught a fright.
I wasn't sleeping, but they both were sleeping. And he came and he stood next to us in front of us, and he started
screaming at them that if we say one more word, he's going to kill us.
So we were threatened by any, any emotions or anything that we did.
We had to be like statues and not move, not talk not go to the bathroom.
Keith went to the bathroom one of the days and he spent more than a second
and he started banging on the door that he needs to get out of the bathroom now. He wouldn't even let him go to the bathroom.
So everything, everything was taken away from us. I wasn't allowed to take my foot out. We weren't allowed to talk.
We weren't allowed to stand. We weren't allowed to move. We weren't allowed to whisper. We weren't allowed anything. We were starved.
They took out, took the oxygen away from us in such an easy way and just left us there to die.
No water. We were dehydrated most of the time we were there and tortured.
I was pulled by my hair, pushed so many times. One of the times they put like black material on our eyes and they
took us out while they took Keith first, while not saying a word, they took his hand and like, pulled him out of the house, not saying anything,
after they covered his eyes, and he came back after a couple of minutes and he was wet, sweating and red and shaking.
And he said: Aviva, are you here? Because he couldn't see that I was there.
And he said: It's pitch dark. I was scared that they're going to separate between us.
I couldn't even say three words. And he did the same thing and he took Keith again. They must have heard somebody downstairs.
Keith had to find his way downstairs. Pitch black.
Because I went after Keith. While we were waiting for our turn to be covered
we had to say a prayer to Allah with the terrorists with us,
even though we don't believe in Allah. And then they put the black material and I remember that I was
starting to shake because I am so scared of the dark. It's one of the worst things for me to be in the dark.
But I had to listen. And then I was pulled out with my hand and had to figure out where to put my next step.
I hold the wall by trying to figure out where to walk, and then I try to grab his shirt to hold on something
because I didn't know where I was going, it was pitch dark, and he pushed me, so I nearly fell backwards
until I got to a place where I couldn't figure out where to put my next step and I couldn't feel the wall.
So he took my hair like this and my shirt... [GESTURING] ...and threw me into the car. [GESTURING]
And I sat... [GESTURING] ...and I couldn't feel Keith. And that minute or second was one of the worst seconds in my life,
feeling that Keith isn't next to me. He was sitting next to the girl, so she gave me Keith's hand.
And then I felt, because we were tied, we couldn't see anything. And then from there we were taken to a different house.
But before that, I'll tell you what happened with the girls. One of the days, one of the girls came back from the bathroom.
And I remember, like, thinking to myself. It's taking her quite a while. Where is she?
And then she stepped in to the room, and I remember looking at her,
and she was white, and you could see on her face that something happened.
She looked sad. She looked scared. And I just said to myself, just get up and give her a hug.
I felt like her mother. I became very close to the girls and I got up and I gave her a hug.
And the terrorists came in and started screaming. Screaming.
And I looked at him and I said: It's okay. I love her.
And she sat on the bed. And everybody was quiet. And then I remember talking, whispering, sorry, whispering with Keith
and maybe with the other girl. But my ears were, from all the bombs and everything,
I couldn't hear well, and I still can't hear from my ears, so I didn't even sit with them to listen to what she was saying
or what they were saying. And then after a couple of hours, she came up to me and she said:
I want to tell you something. He touched me. And she told me exactly what he did.
But I do know now that she didn't tell me everything because the girls used to talk about their periods all the time.
And one of the girls told me that Keith said: Don't tell Aviva stories that are hard. She's too sensitive.
So I don't know if-- I really don't know. I do know that they didn't tell me everything.
And then after going through that, we all had to smile
to the terrorists that did that. And she had a smile to him, as if nothing happened, because he
threatened her that if she does tell anybody, he's going to kill her.
And I just looked at her, smiling at him as if nothing happened.
And she couldn't even run away from that. It was like in front of her face. That same terrorist that I could not stand.
I could not look at him. I wanted to scream.
And then one of the days, one of the girls, a different girl, was called out of the room.
And he told her to go and get dressed. And her hijab was on the floor, so she bent down to pick it up.
And while she was bending down she moved her face like that. And she said that she's scared that he's going to take her
and she's going to be alone. And she just said that, he took her hair and threw on the floor... [GESTURING]
...with a gun in front of her face and said: One more word, I'm going to kill you. I had to see that to the girl that I love.
And I wasn't allowed to cry, I wasn't allowed to shout, I wasn't allowed to feel.
And that's such a difficult feeling. I don't know how to explain it even.
But you just want to vanish. You want to die. Those were the minutes in the moments that I want to just die.
I wanted to vanish out of this world. It was, like, too much for me. I need to blow my nose and maybe go to the toilet.
[DRINKING] INT: [UNCLEAR] Wow. Transported and... AS: Yes. I'll tell you about the girl.
So she got dressed and he took her in a brutal way, really a brutal way.
And we were just so scared. Like, I remember Keith and I just looking at each other and trying
to figure out what's happening. And then one of the girls that was with us in the room said:
Aviva, put your fingers in your ears. You don't want to hear what's happening. And they beat her up into pieces with a stick, a long stick, and their guns.
And while they did that, the terrorist with the stick came into the room with us and he was like, hitting the cupboard and hitting the door,
and you could see in his face he was completely and utterly red that he was going to kill us in a second.
And I was trying to, like, not feel, but I couldn't, and I was just
so worried they're going to kill her. Shaking, trying to figure out what is happening.
And then... suddenly it was quiet.
They took a blanket and they put the blanket over her, handcuffed her.
And when she came back, her hands were red. Her hair was standing. She was wet.
She was hit all over her body. And she sat down on the floor shaking.
Crying. And I wasn't allowed to get up and give her a hug. The only thing I did was like, looked in her eyes to give her some love
and to show her that I'm with her. But I was scared. We were all scared. We didn't even move.
I think we didn't even breathe when it happened. And they did that because they thought that she was lying.
She wasn't lying. And then they used to tease her all the time and like, bring a stick and like,
hit something and say that: You're lying. You're lying. And she said that she's not lying.
And she didn't lie. INT: Lying about what? She was lying-- I need, I also need to protect her.
You know, I don't want to... INT: Ah. So that what happened and it was just another thing that happened
that was just the worst thing in earth. To see somebody that you love that's beaten up into pieces
and you can't do anything. And then one of the days they took one of the girls and they sat her
in front of us, like, not with us. Like, in front of us, as if something's going to happen to her.
And we were also just like looking at her and trying to think, what's happening? What are they going to take? Or they're going to move her.
And she sat there and we were just so upset, like just looking at each other.
And then after maybe a half an hour, they told her that she can come back to us and she came back to us.
And I remember that it was a moment that I couldn't stop crying.
She couldn't stop crying. And we just let ourselves cry. And they didn't stop us.
We were just so terrified that something bad is going to happen to her, or to us,
or to one of us, because whatever they wanted, they did.
Whatever they wanted. Some of the times they told us to get dressed in the hijab with it
on our face, on our head, and told us to lie down and go to sleep with us, that we weren't allowed to even take it off our head.
[SIGHING] Just to control us in every way they can.
And then the last day was very strange and different. They brought, they brought Keith long pants and I said: Maybe we're moving.
And we felt happy because they were terrible to us. Really terrible. And then we moved.
They moved us to a place that was like part of a house. It wasn't even the whole house, and everything was bombed around it.
So I remember saying to myself at least it's going to be maybe quiet here without all the rockets coming out of the houses and all the bombing.
And they we walked into the house and they told Keith to go to a different room, and I started shaking.
I said to myself I need Keith next to me because I need Keith next to me. And it was just after they put the black material on our eyes,
and I didn't even hug Keith and say that: Don't worry, I'm with you. Everything is going to be okay.
And I asked the terrorist to bring Keith that I want to talk to Keith just a little bit, or if I can go to Keith.
And he said: No, no, no, no, you can't. You just sit here. And I begged. I begged and begged and begged.
Can you just let Keith be with me? Just a little bit? I want to just talk to him a little bit. Just say that we're here next to you.
We're next to you in the same house. Don't worry. But they didn't let us.
And then maybe ten minutes after we arrived there, somebody came and we knew him because he was the driver. So we called him the driver.
He had moved us some of the times moving in Gaza. So we knew him.
And he came up to me and he said: You tomorrow, Israel. And I looked at him and I said to him: Me and Keith?
So he said: No, only you. So I said: I'm not going without Keith. I'm staying with Keith, or I'm going with Keith,
and you and Keith will come with me. And he said: No, no, no, no, no, only you. So I said: No, I'm not going.
And I must have argued with him for a short while until I understood that I have to just get up and listen because he's a terrorist and he can kill me.
So I got up and I said: I'm going to Keith. And he said: No, Keith's sleeping. So I said: No, Keith's not sleeping.
He wouldn't let me go to Keith. So I moved in with my hand and I went to Keith, and I found Keith lying on
the floor on a filthy, dirty mattress, just like what we did all the time.
And he was looking at the ceiling, and he looked sad. And I bent down and I gave Keith a hug.
And I told him to be strong for me, and I'll be strong for him. And I'm so happy that I did that, because it's keeping me going.
And I'm sure that it's helping Keith a lot. And I try to think to myself, how come I even thought about saying that?
Because I was threatened second, two seconds before that by the Hamas
terrorists and I need to go. So I even thought about those things, and I know,
I know, because Keith was so sad. He didn't say a word.
He just looked in my eyes with a sad look. And that's what made me say those things, that it needs to be strong.
So I just hope that he's still strong. He's there for more than a year and I just can't believe it.
I just can't believe it. Thrown on a filthy, dirty mattress. Not being able to clean his body. Threatened.
Starved, with no oxygen, with no water. Not able to talk, express himself.
Without glasses so he can't even see, read.
There for more than a year. INT: Have you had any more...
AS: So I want to tell you a couple of more things about that end of the day. But what did you want to ask me? INT: No, no, just go on.
AS: So they took me. Only me. And I was scared. I didn't know if I'll ever see Keith again,
and I don't know what they're going to do to me. I did not have a clue of what they're going to do. I just knew that I'm going alone with two terrorists.
It was evening and dark already, and I was scared. And we-- They took us in a car. They took me in a car.
And maybe five or ten minutes later the car stopped and the door opened
and they brought in to the car a Thai guy. And I'll never forget his face.
He was shaking and he could hardly breathe. The only thing that he said, that he was underneath the ground
and that he couldn't breathe. I hugged him and told him that I'm with him and he wouldn't even tell me his name.
He was so scared. He was just scared of everything. So I don't know what he was thinking.
And they took us to a house that we had to like, crawl through like,
places that were like, broken in houses to a place with two beds.
The first beds that we had that we lay down on, and I just gave him my hand.
And when I saw that he was crying, I got up and gave him a hug, the Thai guy, and trying to figure out what's going to happen to my life, where am I going?
What are they going to do to me? And I was just so scared all the time.
And then the morning came and he brought like a filthy, dirty brush.
And he said that I have to brush my hair because I had rusted, you know,
my hair was all like in clots. [SIGHING]
And I said: No, I don't want to brush my hair. And I took my hair up like this. And I said, beautiful.
So they all laughed and they let me not brush my hair. But five minutes later somebody came to take pictures of me
and I had to say that I'm Aviva Siegal, I'm from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, I'm 62 years old and I want people to...
I want Bibi Netanyahu to release me, not knowing what's going
to happen, not knowing anything. Just me and the Thai guy with all the, with maybe five terrorists.
[PAUSES] And I just had to try and figure out how am I going to breathe
because I wanted to die. I just wanted to die and vanish again.
And then more people came up into that house, and they took us to a place that
there were lots and lots of terrorists. Lots of terrorists. There must have been maybe 40 terrorists. They all got dressed in their uniforms while they set us in two vans.
So I was separated from the people that I was with and from the Thai guy. I was in a van with two children, One, 15 years old and one, eight.
Dafna, and [?Ella?]. And Dafna looked at me and she said: Aviva, I'll never, ever forget my sister
screaming when they connected her finger that was disconnected. You won't believe it.
They took her to a vet and they didn't put, they didn't put any anesthetic on the finger.
So she screamed. And you know, when I think about it, I'm sure she was waiting to tell
somebody, maybe to tell her parents, but she told me that was a, a terrible, terrible moment of her life.
And that girl [?Ella?]. She's eight years old. Eight years old.
And then while we're sitting, the Hamas terrorists come and ask them: Where's your parents?
And they said: My mom wasn't on the kibbutz, and my father is in a different car.
When they came back, they told him that their father was killed.
And then they said that: No Israel, no Israel. Europe.
And [?Ella?] started crying that she doesn't want to go to Europe. And I said: Don't worry, I'll be with you and I'll help you.
Because the whole time that I was there for the 51 days, they used to say that there's no Israel, no Israel.
And I just want to remember now, before I tell you about the end, that they forced the girls and Keith, one of the days, to come and see TV.
We didn't see TV and we didn't have a radio, so we didn't know what's happening in Israel.
But one of the days they did force Keith and the girls to come and see dead people in Israel.
What they showed on TV and I remember the girls and Keith coming back. They were white and they were shaking.
They couldn't believe it that that's what they saw, that they had to see that.
[SHAKING HEAD] Just everything was just so nasty.
One of the days, one of the girls helped to make pasta for everybody, and he poured the boiling water on her hand and he burned her hand.
INT: And all the terrorists were only men, right? AS: [NODDING] INT: Or did you did you ever see any women
when you were walking around or... AS: One of the houses, there was the mother, the wife of the Hamas terrorist.
And she was in a different room with three children. And then we asked him if that's his wife and his children,
and he said: No. But they took the baby. The parents, the Hamas terrorist with his wife took the baby to a doctor.
He told us that he took her to the doctor, and the two little children stayed with us for a half an hour, and they called him father.
So we understood that it's his family. And so we saw them once, and they were with us for a couple of days,
but in a different room in the same house. We didn't see a woman.
So that last day we sat in the van and then a little car came and I
remember, like looking, I allowed myself just to look a little bit like that. I was scared to even turn my face to see.
And out of that little car there was a Thai guy and an old lady, and they took the old lady and they put her on a chair, on a plastic chair.
And they carried her and they put her put her at the back of the van.
And I was scared to turn around. And I was like thinking, thinking to myself that maybe it's
the mother of the Thai guy. And poor thing, she came and she was kidnapped. And I said: He's looking after her. I'm sure that he's looking after her.
And after maybe a half an hour of them sitting in the car while I was scared to turn around because I was scared that they would kill me...
I was scared of everything... ...one of the terrorists asked us if anybody knows English, and I said: I do.
And he said: Tell her to pick her head up. [GESTURING] He said that in Hebrew, maybe. And I said to her, pick your head up.
And I turned around and I saw this old lady with her head like that... [GESTURING] ...and her feet couldn't get down.
She couldn't touch her feet because they were in the air, because she was small. Her whole feet were purple, blue, red.
Until here. All of it. [GESTURING] And I could see, because they didn't pick her shirt down...
[GESTURING] ...I could see like she was with red marks all over her back.
And I told them: bring her sister next to me and I'll hold her head.
So they did. I was lucky. They brought her and sat her next to me.
And the first second that I looked at her and I said to myself: She looks dead. I can't believe it. She looks dead.
And that's one of the things that I'm scared of, so scared of: Dead people.
But I took, I took my hand and I hold her head. And I picked her head up. And when I touched her, I could feel that she was cold.
Freezing cold. So I turned around to the terrace and I said that he needs to bring her a blanket. She's cold.
And I took down her shirt that covered her and her pants like that. [GESTURING] They'll cover a little bit of a fit.
She was ice cold, and they brought a blanket and I covered her.
And I started massaging her. Massaging her and massaging her and massaging her legs and massaging her body
and picking her head up and massaging and picking her head up and then trying to see if she's alive.
And then I took a bottle of water that we had that they gave us, and I gave her some water and I said: Poor thing, she must be dehydrated.
Maybe that's why she can't hold her head. And she drank a couple of sips of water. And then I knew that she was alive.
And I started shouting that she needs to keep herself alive for children and grandchildren.
And I just said that all the time and continued to massage her all the time.
And then I turned around to the Hamas terrorist, and I said that she needs a doctor, she needs a doctor, she's going to die.
And I was scared. I was getting scared to looking at her because I was scared that she was dead. But I continued massaging her and shouting and she was blinking.
She was the strongest lady in earth. And then after a couple of hours the doctor came and tried to shove a tablet.
It was a tablet that was like a dark orange color, a big one.
And he pushed it into her mouth and I told him, you're going to kill her. And she coughed it out.
Luckily. I was so lucky, and she was so lucky that she did because she would have choked.
And then I looked at him and I said: Where did you learn how to be a doctor? So he said: From my father a little bit and from the internet.
And I continued massaging her and chatting. And then we were taken to a to a place, and we waited there
for the Red Cross's cars to come, and waited for a short while, while I'm holding her head and chatting in her ear and doing massage for
all the time that she must keep awake, because I knew that they're going to come and take us. And then the car, the cars came of the Red Cross,
while there were thousands of Hamas terrorists around us shouting and taking
pictures and screaming [ARABIC]. And I was sure that we're going to die. And then they came.
The girl came from the Red cross and I told her: Please take her as quick as possible because it doesn't seem like she's going to make it.
And she took us, she took her, and we waited because they wanted to stable her. And then she came back to me and she said that they stabled her a little bit
and that we're going to go now. And we were sitting in the Red Cross's car while the Hamas terrorists were taking
rocks and trying to smash the windows. We were the last car out of the four four cars and trying to smash all
the windows while one of the terrorists, like, holed himself on the car with a long, long stick of metal
trying to bash the window. The driver's window.
And the driver was from Denmark... INT: Wow. AS: ...from Denmark, from the Red Cross, and he was trying to get him down.
And then he opened the window a little bit to shout to him, to tell him that he needs to get down because he's going to fall.
And he was able to take the stick, the metal stick, and to put it inside the car.
And I saw the end of our lives. I was shaking, I was just shaking and not knowing
where they're going to take us. And the Red Cross was like going just a little bit. And, and the Hamas terrorists wouldn't let the Hamas wouldn't let them go.
So he had to stop and like, hoot for them to move... [GESTURING]
...and try and like, you know, figure out how is he going to go because they wouldn't let him drive. And they are there trying to break the window while we're sitting
in the car and trying to figure out if we're going to live. I was sure that we're going to die.
And that took, that drive, took us at least an hour, an hour,
until we got to the first soldiers. And then I saw the soldiers, and I burst into tears, and I cried and cried like a baby,
like I've never, ever cried before and we were moved from the soldiers,
we were moved into a van with like, of social workers and doctors that checked to see how we are.
And then the soldier, the social worker, came up to me and she said: Are you okay, Aviva?
And I said: No, I'm not okay because I feel like I'm going home and I'm, and I'm going to see my girls standing without my son because I know that he's dead.
I was sure that he was dead all the time that I was in Gaza, because the boy that came from Kfar Aza, underneath the tunnel with us,
he was holding his dog, and he said that some of the blood is with, of the dogs.
So I was sure that they killed my son's dog and he just started screaming. So I told her that I feel that I'm going to faint, by not being with Keith,
being alone with the situation, seeing my three girls without him.
And then she went and she... I saw talking on the telephone and after maybe five minutes or some
so she came up to me and she said, you have four children. And I started--
I started crying and I said: But isn't Shai injured? Is he okay? Because I knew that people were killed. Shot. Keith was shot.
I was shocked that the bullets didn't hit me, but I was shocked.
And she couldn't tell me. So I had to wait. And then we got to a place and everybody welcomed us and there was food.
And I remember that the first they asked me if I want something to drink, and I had this crave for something hot because we didn't only,
like, in one of the houses, I asked for some boiling water because my stomach was so sore and he brought me
boiling water once, and that's the only thing that I drank that was hot. And I love tea and hot. Anything that's hot.
So I remember I asked them to make me like hot choco?
Cacao? INT: Chocolate milk. AS: Chocolate milk, and it was just the best thing.
But it was sweet and I couldn't... I couldn't eat anything sweet at all for weeks after I came back.
And it was lovely. And then they let me talk to Shai, and to my daughters and to my sisters.
And I heard my son and I just burst into tears. And I couldn't help myself. Shai's was okay, nothing happened to him.
They came. They were outside his house. They built him a [UNCLEAR].
They built-- They brought all their guns and put underneath his house for hours. And that's why he heard the Arabic.
And at 5:00 in the afternoon, he started hearing Hebrew from outside his room, and he shouted.
He didn't want to open the window because he was scared that they would kill him. And so he shouted from inside that a child that is alive.
And they told him to open the window. And at 5:00 in the afternoon, the soldiers climbed into Shai's house,
and they killed the Hamas terrorists that came to take all the,
a;; the guns from underneath his house. And they were with him until 5:00 the next morning until they took him out of Kfar Aza.
And Keith is still there. The girls are still there. And Keith doesn't know that Shai is alive.
He doesn't know what's happened on Kfar Aza, 64 people were murdered in such a brutal way.
Some of them are my children's best friends. Some of them are my friends. My next door neighbor that I know for more than 40 years.
And what we're going through is just the worst time of our lives worrying about Keith.
Keith got high blood pressure and he's American. While we were there, they asked if anybody's got a different passport.
And Keith didn't want to tell them that he's American because he was scared that they would take me out and leave him there,
take him out and leave me there. And now I'm here and Keith is there.
So I've been to the States seven times, begging.
I've met Biden twice. I met Blinken at least seven times.
And so many important people there and begging because Keith's American, for them to bring Keith home. And the girls.
And I just want to say that what these hostages are going through is the
cruelest thing ever, to leave them there, to die slowly, knowing what happened with the six hostages
that came back, their conditions, they lost half of their body.
They had skin infections and they were in such brutal place, conditions.
It just doesn't seem right that us as humans would let Keith and hostages
to be there and suffer like they are.
It just does not seem right. I don't understand this world. I'll never be able to understand this world.
Half the leaders of this world will relieve the hostages, knowing in what conditions they are in.
I was there, and I've been talking about the conditions for more than ten months,
about nearly dying so many times, and they just left there.
They left there to die. [PAUSES 9 SECONDS]
[SIGHING] Terrible. INT: Please, God. He's okay.
AS: Yes INT: [SIGHING] AS: Keith, every evening, used to tell everybody to say something good.
And I remember the first time that he said that. I looked at him and I said: How can I say something good about this place?
And I was the last one out of the four of us to say. And I used to say the same thing every time.
How lucky that you're with me and that I have you to be with me.
And I can't remember what Keith used to say because he used to say every day something else. But I remember that feeling.
And I used to say to everybody: Okay, let's put hands-- We used to put hands on top of each other, and let's just say:
[HEBREW] The most important thing is to wake up tomorrow morning.
Because in the night, it was the feeling that we're going to die. Every night.
[PAUSES] INT: And the, the rage that they have these terrorists and the fact
that they're continually torturing you. That's another thing that I don't think people are thinking about.
Like maybe they think: Oh, they're hostages, they're in Gaza, so maybe they're in bad conditions. But the constant...
AS: I didn't have one, one second to relax. [GESTURING]
Not one for 51 days. Not even one. [GESTURING] Death was there all the time. [GESTURING]
It was, or they're going to kill us. [GESTURING] Or I'm going to die from something, or the ceiling will fall on us, [GESTURING]
or the bombs will fall on us, [GESTURING] or they're just going to kill us. [GESTURING] And I just can't believe it that Keith and hostages are there
lying underneath the ground on filthy, dirty mattresses and just thinking who's going to be the next one to be raped,
to be starved, to be touched, to be threatened, to be pushed.
[PAUSES] It just doesn't seem right.
It seems like a war of maybe 800 years ago.
But now, knowing, and knowing what they're going through.
And the whole world knows what they're going through. And nothing has been done. They're still there.
[PAUSES] [HEBREW]
[SIGHING] [DRINKING]
INT: They had this thing all the time about trying to show that they're humane and, you know, like you said, that they told the girls not to say anything,
that she's lying, that she's lying, because she said that something happened maybe. So that's like part of their sort of Islamic beliefs that they,
you know, they tried to say that they're don't hurt women and children and things like that, or...
AS: They are crazy. They are crazy all the time. All the time.
Just crazy people. Everything was done in such a brutal way all the time.
Shouting, pushing, hitting. Everything that you can think about.
I don't think that there's a jail in any place in the world
that the people that are looking after the people that are in jail sit and eat in front of them, or drink in front of them while they starved.
They just allowed themselves to do anything, anything, everything they wanted they do. Anything they want to.
Tell us to sit half the night while you just want to lie down.
Okay. We don't have to sleep during the night, but you feel like you have to lie down. Just sit and wait. And wait.
And then they say: Okay, you can lie down. Just to tell us to sit or make fun of us and tell us, get dressed looking
like Arabs and saying: Sorry, we don't have any place to take you to.
So why don't you tell us to get dressed? INT: And when you got to transporting from place to place,
did you ever have the feeling like you want to escape somehow? Or, you... AS: [SHAKING HEAD] No, they were on us with their guns all the time, with their knives,
with their guns, all the time. INT: Those other citizens that see you, they know that you're hostages, right? They...
AS: We walked in in the town with people like, looking at us, but nobody, I didn't feel that anybody's, like staring at us
and think that we that we hostages. We looked like Arabs. We were dressed like Arabs, so we looked like Arabs.
But yes, we were scared. I remember one of the times walking and Keith saying that it was one of
the times that he was scared the most. Walking and thinking that maybe somebody will realize that we are
hostages and they'll just kill us. And that was one of the moments that I wasn't...
I was floating, floating again. I didn't allow myself so many times to feel because it
was too difficult for me. I'm a very, very sensitive person. Not that Keith isn't. Keith the [?Saintest].
The most sensitive person on Earth. But he's stronger than me maybe.
[PAUSES] I don't know.
[PAUSES] INT: And so it's been... We're October 21st, 2024.
So he's been for 381 days? How many days?
AS: I don't know. I don't even look at the days anymore. It's too difficult for me even to think about the days.
After the year passed I've stopped counting. It's just too much.
It's just too cruel. It's beyond, leaving them there.
And I say: Okay, if Hersh and Carmel and Eden and the other three guys
that came out wouldn't have come out, but they came out and the whole world saw what happened to them.
So wake up. Wake up. There's people there with hearts that belong to families that were
taken with their pajamas in Gaza, in those conditions. They didn't do anything.
Keith and I are peacemakers. We want good. We want good for everybody. We want good for the whole world.
We want good for the good people in Gaza. I don't want any mother to have a baby in a tent.
I don't want any older people to lie on a mattress in a tent for a year in Gaza.
I want the good people to have a better life. And I hope that one day they'll have a better life,
that somebody will take care of them too. [PAUSES]
But my biggest hope, more than anything else, is that Keith comes home
and the girls come home, and the boys come home, and everybody, all the hostages come home,
because it's becoming too difficult for me to handle. [PAUSES 6 SECONDS]
INT: Is there any time that you guys thought maybe you were near Sinwar or something like that? Like, because they're always talking about...
AS: I don't think that we had much time to think. It was just trying to live, trying to figure out if you're going to live.
Trying to figure out if you're going to die, if they're going to starve you, if they're going to bring you water,
if they're going to hit you, if they're going to push you, if they're going to shoot you, or they're going to touch one of the girls.
Those were my thoughts all the time. Of being there in that situation. Not not not more than that.
[PAUSES 6 SECONDS]
And I believe them. And they said that there's no Israel. I believe them.
I thought we were going to stay there until we die.
That we've been forgotten. [PAUSES 9 SECONDS]
INT: Is there any message you would like people to hear when they hear this testimony, at any point in history, at any time?
Like a personal... AS: I do want to say that leaders of the world have been chosen.
By people, by people like me. I'm a simple person, like Keith.
Simple people. And they've been chosen because we want to live,
because we want to play with our grandchildren, because we want to eat good things. Because we want to live.
People don't choose leaders to make wars and kill.
I'm sure that most humans do not want that for their families,
for nobody to go through what they're going through. And what they're going through, the hostages,
and what I went through was beyond, beyond.
And what happened on Kfar Aza of the killing, the 64 people that were killed and murdered.
Burnt alive. Killed in such a brutal way and left to die.
You know, there's so many people on Kfar Aza that are dead that spoke
to their families while they were dying because they could still talk.
And after hours, they found them dead. So they died slowly.
It should not be allowed. Killing and wars should not be allowed.
People should talk. Should find a way. Okay, if I can't talk to you, then we'll find somebody that will help us,
that will be able to talk. And that's, That's how it's supposed to be.
It just... It just seems ridiculous that people have to kill for land.
Why? Talk, try and figure out how to live,
not try and figure out how to kill. And there's so much hate in this world.
So much of the world hates Israel, us as Jews.
I remember myself walking in North Carolina maybe 15 years ago,
and we were talking to some people that were lovely people, and we were just talking to them. We were walking on a trail, and then they asked us where we're from,
and I said, from Israel. They turned around. and that's 15 years ago. INT: Wow. AS: So much hate. There's so much hate.
If you take all the hate that there is in the world and move it to love, instead of all the the demonstrations in the United States against Israel,
rather then stand up and say, we want a better life for people
that live in Gaza. We want a better life for everybody in this planet.
But it just becomes hate. And it it drives me crazy because I'm not that kind of person,
and Keith's not that kind of person at all. Kids will do anything for anybody. Anything for anybody.
[PAUSES 5 SECONDS]
INT: It's all right. I pray.
AS: Yeah. And, you know, I'm not a believer. I've never been a believer.
But while I was in Gaza, they used to pray to Allah in front of us.
I don't know who they prayed to because they prayed and in five minutes they wanted to kill us or hit us or starve us.
But when they did pray, I said to myself: Okay, who are you going to pray for?
So I prayed for everybody. For God, for Buddha, for Allah.
For anybody that will take me out of Gaza and take Keith and us out of Gaza.
I prayed for help. If there's anybody in the world that would have listened
to help me get out of there, I prayed all the time.
And Keith is still there and it's not helping. [PAUSES]
So I don't know how to fix things. I don't know what to do.
But I do know that if I was being chosen to be a leader, I would think good instead of bad.
I would lead everything to be in a better way. [PAUSES 5 SECONDS]
Because you've got a heart. I've got a heart. My heart is bigger than my brain. And that's how it should be.
People should first feel and then talk and then do.
[PAUSES] I just wish and hope that this history of this, this time,
will finish today and that everybody will go back to themselves, to their houses, to their lives.
Keith will come back. I can't wait for Keith to come back.
Can't wait. And all the hostages. The girls that I was with.
I just can't wait to hug them and be there for them.
[PAUSES 7 SECONDS]
INT: Please, God. AS: [NODDING] Please, God. [PAUSES]
INT: Thank you. AS: Thank you. [PAUSES]
INT: [YIDDISH] CREW: Yeah. INT: So, did you ever find out what happened to the elderly lady that was with you
in the car with the Red cross? AS: Her name is Elma. She's from Kibbutz Nahal Oz. She's 84 years old.
INT: Wow. AS: And she came back. She lost half of her body weight. And she said that they gave her two dates a day.
She was in hospital in Israel for nearly a half a year after coming back.
INT: Wow. AS: And I went to visit her. I brought her cheesecake because I heard that that's what she loves the most.
And her son gave her just a couple of bites because she wasn't allowed to eat too much. They took care of her.
84 years old. INT: And you said she was very cold when you met her.
AS: She-- Her body temperature was 28 degrees.
She was freezing. Freezing cold. INT: Wow. AS: But she is the strongest person I've ever met in my life.
The strongest. To keep alive on that day. She was the strongest.
And the doctor said that she was lucky. That I massaged her and massaged her.
That what kept her going. They said that if I wouldn't have done that she would have been dead already.
INT: Wow. [SIGHING] God.
You're also the strongest person you've ever met. AS: [HEBREW] Keith is. [?Brag?] for Keith.
[LAUGHING] INT: Amen. Can't wait till he comes back. And hopefully it will be very, very soon, 'cause...
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