Freed Israeli hostages campaign for new ceasefire with Hamas, call for return of captives from Gaza
Statistics tell the grim story of the
October 7th, 2023 Hamas terrorist attack
on Israel: 1,200 civilians and soldiers slaughtered that day, 251 taken hostage: men, women, and children. Since then, an estimated 50,000 Gazans have been killed.
Twelve days ago, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu
resumed the bombing of Gaza
, breaking a fragile ceasefire that was exceedingly popular with Israelis. Two dozen hostages came home alive in that ceasefire. Now, instead of quietly healing, many of them - frail, traumatized and in pain – are out campaigning for the release of all the 24 remaining hostages still believed to be alive, suffering in the Gaza tunnels. This weekend, new talks around a possible ceasefire have been reported that would include releasing a handful of them.
The anguish of Yarden Bibas – forced to sit on camera after he's told by Hamas that his wife and sons were blown up in an Israeli air raid, though he now knows that the boys were killed by their captors.
Yarden Bibas: They were murdered in cold blood, bare hands. They used to tell me-- "Oh, doesn't matter. You'll get a new wife. Get new kids. Better wife. Better kids."
Lesley Lesley Stahl: They said that to you?
Yarden Bibas: Yeah, many times. Many times.
His wife
Shiri and two red headed sons
, 4-year-old Ariel and 9-month-old Kfir, became the symbol of the horror of October 7 when they were kidnapped out of their home – while Yarden was driven off to Gaza on a motorcycle, swarmed and beaten by an angry mob.
He was released last month in a staged ceremony, sent home thanks to a ceasefire. The bodies of his wife and sons were returned later. Just four days after burying them, he made a public appeal.
Lesley Stahl: You wrote a letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu that was read aloud and it was really a plea to stop the fighting.
Yarden Bibas: Yeah, because we still have people there.
Lesley Stahl: But don't you think that the fighting will encourage them to release the hostages?
Yarden Bibas: No.
Lesley Stahl: No?
Yarden Bibas: No.
The fighting resumed despite a ceasefire agreement in place that would've eventually ended the war in exchange for all the remaining hostages. This is Bibas' first interview. He chose an American outlet, he said, so the White House would hear his message.
Lesley Stahl: If you could say something to President Trump, what would you say?
Yarden Bibas: Please stop-- stop this war and help-- help bring all the hostages back.
Lesley Stahl: And you think he can help?
Yarden Bibas: I know he can help. I'm here because of Trump. I'm here only because of him. I think he's the only one who can stop this war again.
Lesley Stahl: So you think he can bring about another ceasefire?
Yarden Bibas: He has to convince Netanyahu, convince Hamas. I think he can do it.
The lives of the hostages still there, Bibas says, are jeopardized every moment the bombing continues. And he knows.
Lesley Stahl: You were held mostly in the tunnels?
Yarden Bibas: Yeah.
Lesley Stahl: So when there was fighting going on, when the IDF was bombing, life got worse?
Yarden Bibas: It's scary. You don't know when it's gonna happen. And when it happens, you're afraid for your life. The whole earth would move like an earthquake, but under-- underground.
Lesley Stahl: Oh my God.
Yarden Bibas: So everything could collapse any moment.
Weighing on Bibas is that his best friend is still in Gaza.
David Cunio
was kidnapped with his wife, Sharon, and two kids. They came home; he did not.
Yarden Bibas: This is David. I know him from first grade. And this is his younger brother, Ariel.
Lesley Stahl: And they're both still in captivity?
Yarden Bibas: They're both still in captivity. And-- I don't know if they gave enough food, enough water. Especially now, when the war is back on.
Lesley Stahl: Tell us about the friendship.
Yarden Bibas: We did everything together. He was with me in every big thing in my life. He was in my wedding. And now I'm having the-- probably the-- the hardest thing I have to move with my life, and David is not with me. I lost my wife and kids. Sharon must not lose her husband.
Hours after the bombing resumed, Bibas stood in silent protest alongside another recently released hostage,
Keith Siegel
.
Keith, who's Israeli-American, and his wife Aviva, had gone to the White house to thank President Trump for their release.
President Trump: Take care of yourself, OK.
Lesley Stahl: This is your house?
Aviva Siegel: This is the house.
Keith Siegel: Yes.
They showed us where they were kidnapped: their old house in a kibbutz near the border with Gaza.
Aviva Siegel: I stood here. They forced me out of the window, and they pushed me outta the window while I had to go all the way there.
Lesley Stahl: Oh my God.
Aviva Siegel: I was in a shock. I was in a shock.
Keith Siegel: We were driven into Gaza and then taken into a tunnel -- feeling in danger, feeling life threatened, terrorists around us with weapons.
Lesley Stahl: Could you breathe? Was there enough oxygen, down there?
Keith Siegel: We were gasping for our breath.
Aviva was with her husband for 51 days – until she was released during a brief ceasefire in 2023. They were
held with several women and children
, and said there was constant abuse.
Keith Siegel: I witnessed a young woman who was being tortured by the terrorists. I mean literal, you know, torture, not just-- in the figurative sense.
Lesley Stahl: They made you watch it?
Keith Siegel: Yeah. I saw sexual assault
with female hostages.
Keith says things got worse for him after Aviva was released and that early ceasefire collapsed.
Keith Siegel: The terrorists became very mean, and very cruel, and violent.
Lesley Stahl: More so?
Keith Siegel: Much more so. They were beating me and starving me.
Lesley Stahl: Do you think they starved you or they just didn't have food?
Keith Siegel: No, I think they starved me and they-- they would often eat in front of me and not--offer me food.
Lesley Stahl: Did they let you take showers?
Keith Siegel: Once a month.
It was like a half a bucket of water with a cup to like pour over our body, cold water.
Lesley Stahl: I had heard that they shaved the men's heads and private parts.
Keith Siegel: Yes, this is true.
Lesley Stahl: Do you know why?
Keith Siegel: I think they thought it was maybe it amused them or, you know, humiliating. I felt humiliated.
Lesley Stahl: You told us that your spirit was broken.
Keith Siegel: Yes. I felt that I was completely dependent on the terrorists, that my life relied on them, whether they were gonna give me food--bring me water-- protect me from the mobs that would lynch me. I was left alone several times and I was very, very scared that maybe they won't come back and I'll be left there. And what do I do then?
Lesley Stahl: Oh my goodness.
Keith Siegel: What do I do then? So maybe that was a way for them to torture me in that way, in a psychological way-- make me think, "OK, should I escape? Should I not escape? Should I try to escape?" But I'm pretty sure they knew I wouldn't dare to do that because I needed them.
Back at their destroyed kibbutz, Aviva spoke of two neighbors still languishing in Gaza.
Aviva Siegel: There needs to be a deal that will bring them back, and finish with this whole thing.
Also still in gaza: best friends Guy Gilboa-Dalal and Evyatar David. Hamas kidnapped them from the Nova Music Festival, taking them deep into enemy territory. Recently released 40-year-old Tal Shoham spent 471 days with them in captivity.
Tal Shoham: After I met Guy and Evyatar-
He met their parents to tell them about their sons.
Lesley Stahl: There are families in situations like this now all over Israel, where released hostages are telling families the conditions of their children.
Ilan Dalal: Well, it's important for us to know exactly what's-- going on with our children.
Lesley Stahl: You're prepared, you think?
Galia David: Yeah. No. Maybe.
It's hard for anyone to be prepared, especially when it's your kids, and Tal didn't hold back, telling Guy's parents:
Tal Shoham: One moment he's, like, partying in the Nova, the second moment he's in the worst place in the world. And it's took him, I think, five or six days just to-- stop crying, to start to-- realize that-- this is the reality now.
Tal said they were mostly confined to a narrow tunnel like this, beaten every day and made to share minute amounts of pita, rice, and water.
Tal Shoham: Like sometimes the water tastes like blood, sometimes like iron. Sometimes it was so salty that you could not drink it, but you don't have anything else. You don't need too much to stay alive. You can eat only one bread every day, and if-- have-- like, 200 mL of water every day and you-- you will stay alive.
Lesley Stahl: You proved you could do it.
Tal Shoham: Yeah. The main guard, he actually said, "I can bring you this kind of amount of food and you will survive, and you will keep like that for five years. And you won't die, but you will-- will have, like, the worst time."
But they were resourceful, coming up with odd ways to win favors. For instance, they discovered one of the guards liked back rubs.
Tal Shoham: So we did exchange. The exchange was that he will get a massage every day and he will bring us some more food. And different food, like--
Lesley Stahl: You bartered.
Tal Shoham: --a can of meat. Yeah, exactly. A can of tuna or sardines.
Lesley Stahl: How are you listening to this?
Galia David: I want everyone to listen because this is the reality. Maybe someone will hear it and it will save our sons. I don't know.
Ilan Dalal: It's worse than how they treat animals.
Tal Shoham: One of the toughest things that I heard from them, they told me more than once that why to stay alive now? I mean, why just to not-- take their own life with their own hand and to finish it, I mean to get released from this.
Galia David: And they will (eigh)-- they will do it together if they decide to do it.
Tal Shoham: They are not children, but from-- from time to time I felt like a father and their rep-- sorry. [cries].
Ilan Dalal: They are children.
Tal Shoham: I really, really fear that they are now alone.
Tormenting them further, for the world to see, Hamas brought Guy and Evya in a van to watch fellow hostages leave, and beg for their own release.
Ilan Dalal: And then they moved them back to the tunnels. So this can be devastating to them.
Lesley Stahl: I don't know how you could watch that.
Galia David: It was a sign of life.
There's so much trauma.
Now home, Keith Siegel spends his time at vigils and protests, instead of quietly healing.
Lesley Stahl: So in a way you're still there.
Keith Siegel: Uh-huh (affirm).
Lesley Stahl: Your mind is still there.
Keith Siegel: It is, every day–
Lesley Stahl: Every day–
Keith Siegel: --most of the day.
Lesley Stahl: You're thinking about who's left behind.
Keith Siegel: Uh-huh.
He and the others are fighting for those left behind, while still in their own pain, feeling a sense of urgency and fear that time is running out.
Produced by Shachar Bar-On. Associate producers, Madeleine Carlisle and Jinsol Jung. Broadcast associate, Aria Een. Edited by Sean Kelly.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Boston Globe
37 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Today in History: June 2, Queen Elizabeth II crowned
In 1886, 49-year-old President Grover Cleveland became the first president to get married in the White House, wedding 21-year-old Frances Folsom. Advertisement In 1924, Congress passed, and President Calvin Coolidge signed, the Indian Citizenship Act, a measure guaranteeing full American citizenship for all Native Americans born within US territorial limits. In 1941, baseball's 'Iron Horse,' Lou Gehrig, died in New York of the degenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease; he was 37. Advertisement In 1953, Queen Elizabeth II was crowned at age 27 at a ceremony in London's Westminster Abbey, 16 months after the death of her father, King George VI. In 1966, US space probe Surveyor 1 landed on the moon and began transmitting detailed photographs of the lunar surface. In 1997, Timothy McVeigh was convicted of murder by a federal jury in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people. (McVeigh would be sentenced to death and was executed in 2001.) In 1999, South Africans went to the polls in their second post-apartheid election, giving the African National Congress a decisive victory; retiring President Nelson Mandela was succeeded by Thabo Mbeki. In 2012, ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was sentenced to life in prison after a court convicted him on charges of complicity in the killing of protesters during the 2011 uprising that forced him from power. (Mubarak was later acquitted and freed in March 2017; he died in February 2020). In 2016, autopsy results revealed that musician Prince died of an accidental overdose of fentanyl, a powerful opioid painkiller.
Yahoo
43 minutes ago
- Yahoo
What we know about the suspect and victims in the Boulder, Colorado, attack
BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — Six people calling for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza were injured at an outdoor mall in Boulder, Colorado, by a man who police say used a makeshift flamethrower and hurled an incendiary device into a crowd. The FBI immediately described Sunday's violence as a 'targeted terror attack.' The suspect, identified by the FBI as 45-year-old Mohamed Sabry Soliman, yelled 'Free Palestine' during the attack on the group of demonstrators, said Mark Michalek, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Denver field office. Soliman was arrested and taken to the hospital for treatment, but authorities didn't elaborate on his injuries. Here is what we know about the attack: How the attack unfolded Authorities said the attacker targeted demonstrators with a volunteer group called Run for Their Lives, which organizes run and walk events to call for the immediate release of the Israeli hostages who remain in Gaza since they were captured by militants during the incursion into southern Israel that started the Israel-Hamas war in 2023. The group had gathered at the Pearl Street pedestrian mall, a four-block area in downtown Boulder frequented by tourists and students. The Israel-Hamas war has inflamed global tensions and contributed to a spike in antisemitic violence in the United States. A week earlier, two Israeli Embassy staffers were shot to death in Washington by a man who yelled 'I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza' as he was being led away by police. Police in Boulder evacuated multiple blocks of the pedestrian mall. The scene shortly after the attack was tense, as law enforcement agents with a police dog walked through the streets looking for threats and instructed the public to stay clear. The violence occurred four years after 10 people were killed a shooting rampage at a grocery store in Boulder, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northwest of Denver. The gunman was sentenced to life in prison for murder after a jury rejected his attempt to avoid prison time by pleading not guilty by reason of insanity. Several people hospitalized The people hospitalized for injuries in the Pearl Street attack range in age from 67 to 88. Photos from the scene showed a woman lying on the ground in the fetal position with her hair soaked, and a man helping her and getting water from someone with a water jug. The injuries authorities found were consistent with reports of people being set on fire, Boulder Police Chief Steve Redfearn said, adding that injuries ranged from serious to minor. Redfearn told reporters Sunday evening that it was too early to discuss a motive but that witnesses were being interviewed. 'It would be irresponsible for me to speculate on motive this early on,' he said. The suspect was arrested at the scene Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, was arrested at the scene. No charges were immediately announced, but officials said they expect to hold him 'fully accountable.' Video from the scene showed him shirtless and wearing jeans and holding two clear bottles with a transparent liquid in them while shouting at onlookers. Another video shows a witness shouting, 'He's right there. He's throwing Molotov cocktails,' as a police officer with his gun drawn advanced on the suspect. FBI leaders in Washington said they were treating the Boulder attack as an act of terrorism, and the Justice Department — which leads investigations into acts of violence driven by religious, racial or ethnic motivations — decried the attack as a 'needless act of violence, which follows recent attacks against Jewish Americans.' 'This act of terror is being investigated as an act of ideologically motivated violence based on the early information, the evidence, and witness accounts. We will speak clearly on these incidents when the facts warrant it,' FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said in a post on X.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
What to know about Karol Nawrocki, Poland's newly elected conservative president
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The final result of Poland's presidential election only became clear after a long, nail-gripping night of counting as both candidates were locked in a near dead heat in the first exit polls after voting ended. Poles awakened Monday to a clear albeit close result that returns a nationalist politician to the presidency who has pledged to hinder the centrist, pro-EU government for the remainder of its term. Here's what to know about Karol Nawrocki, Poland's newly elected conservative president: Trump backed him Nawrocki is a 42-year-old historian who had no political experience prior to the campaign and who was not even a party member until he was tapped by the conservative Law and Justice party that governed Poland from 2015 to 2023. Nawrocki heads the Institute of National Remembrance, which embraces nationalist historical narratives. He led efforts to topple monuments to the Soviet Red Army in Poland. Russia responded by putting him on a wanted list, according to Polish media reports. Nawrocki's supporters describe him as the embodiment of traditional, patriotic values. Many of them oppose abortion and LGBTQ+ visibility and say Nawrocki reflects the traditional values they grew up with. He was also the preferred favorite of U.S. President Donald Trump, with the American conservative group CPAC holding its first meeting in Poland last week during the campaign to give him a boost. Kristi Noem, the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary and a prominent Trump ally, strongly praised him and urged Poles to vote for him. His campaign echoed themes popular on the American right. A common refrain from his supporters is that Nawrocki will restore 'normality,' as they believe Trump has done. U.S. flags appeared at his rallies. Nawrocki performed better in the first round than expected, an indication he was underestimated in the polling. Nawrocki was linked to scandals Nawrocki's quick political rise has not been without controversy, with reports linking him to underworld figures whom he met while boxing or working as a hotel security guard in the past. Nawrocki has also been linked to a scandal involving the acquisition of a Gdansk apartment from an elderly pensioner named Jerzy. Allegations suggest Nawrocki promised to care for Jerzy in return but failed to fulfill the commitment, leading the man to end up in a publicly funded retirement home. His shifting explanations raised questions about his transparency and credibility. After the scandal erupted he donated the apartment to a charity. It recently emerged that Nawrocki took part in a 2009 Gdansk brawl involving about 140 rival soccer fans, some later convicted of crimes. Nawrocki described the fight as a form of 'noble' combat. Polish media have also reported on his connections to gangsters and the world of prostitution. His critics say all of these things make him unfit to represent Poland as the head of state but many right-wing voters don't believe the allegations and accuse the media of using its power to hurt him, creating what appears to be a rallying effect around him. It's unclear what effect, if any, these scandals had on the outcome of Sunday's result.
