Transcript for:
החוויות המפחידות של אביבה סגל בשבי

Wait, you look at me. No, I can see you. Oh, okay. You're blonde. I'm like looking down at the chair, I'm like... Okay. Running? Today is October 21, 2024. I'm Natalie Mann, interviewing Aviva Segal for the USC Shoah Foundation. We're at the Hostage Family Forum in Tel Aviv and the interview will be in English. Just be careful if you go backwards it's your fault. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. So, first of all... Sorry. 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... Okay. and let's start with you telling us a little bit about yourself before the October 7th, 2023. I'm 63. I was born in South Africa and I came to Israel when I was nine years old. I've got a twin sister and a younger sister and we came to Israel to Kibbutz Orah And when we arrived in Israel after a short while, we went to a U'pan for Hebrew, and we went to Carmel. And I remember that as quite a difficult time because we all got sick. I had hepatitis B, and we had lots of lice. My hair was cut off. And they changed my name to Aviva. I was Adrian 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 was very, very difficult 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 want. And what I 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... I don't know. 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 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. the time for me and she was wonderful. Were you identical or? No, she's got blue eyes, I've got brown and she's left-handed, I'm right-handed 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. Wow. Yeah, very different. In school and she stayed here and everything like you had similar lives staying in Israel? Well, my sister when she was growing up with three kids, she moved to Spain and she lived in Seville for 20 years. 94 years. But she used to come all the time to visit. Some of the times, years, she used to come like three, four times during one year. So we saw her 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's life. She came back just shortly before the 7th and on the 7th she became my children's mother. And just today we were sitting with my girls, all of us together without my sister, and one of my girls said, Do you remember? when mommy and daddy weren't here and it was such a hard time and Fiona she was like our 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. 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 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. Amazing. 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. Wow. Yeah. 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... Yeah. And then 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 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 Orar, 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, OK, 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 Kippur Torah. And after a couple of days, he called his mom and dad and said, I'm not coming home. I'm staying. I've 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. Were you in the army? I was in the army. And Keith was 21. 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 were 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. Wow. On Kibbutz Ohar. 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 a matant and I worked as selling the food and I just used to stare at Keith most of the time because I was still in love and it was just lovely. We both worked in the same place. the same place and we earned a little bit of money. And when we earned enough money, we decided we were 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. But I remember we had lots of fun. It was like just the best time of our lives. It was lovely. This was like the 80s. 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, living in the same house. So, and they're lovely people. His mom is still alive. She's 97 years old. Wow. 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 her... me and she'll ask anything what am I going to say because we didn't want her to know that kids kidnapped. Oh so she doesn't know. She does not know. Whenever there's something, any interview in the states of me on TV we tell them and they don't let us see TV. So he's waiting and he doesn't know that she's still alive but I'm sure that she's waiting for him. Yeah. So, um... So we moved from Kibbutz Torah, after we came back from the States. We lived on Kibbutz Torah 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 Or'a to kibbutz Kfaraza. That's a kibbutz much younger. We wanted to be with younger people because we were young. I was pregnant when I came to Kwaraza. I was 22 years old when my first son was born. He was born on Kibbutz Kwaraza. His name is Shai. He turned 41 two days ago. And then we had three girls after Shai. Gal, that's 38. Elan is 33. And Shir is 28. 28. So one son and three girls. One son and three girls. One son and three girls. 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 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 Shira was born five years after Ilani. Gal was 10 already, Shai was 12, and we just had fun together. I loved them being small little children. I wouldn't mind even having a baby now. I've been to Kfar Azzah and it's, you know, from the beginning of our interviews people were saying, telling me what a beautiful, beautiful place it is and it really is a beautiful, beautiful place. So Keith and I arrived at the beginning we stayed in a very very small house while Shai was with us there was not even a bedroom for Shai so what 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. We had to give Shai to the baby house to be looked after because I had to go back to work after six days. weeks. 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 years and two months later. And she went into the baby house also after six weeks. Wow. 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 too soon to go back to work. Yeah. And to leave my baby. And the baby is six weeks old. Yeah. I remember starting work with Gal and Shai and like, they call you to come and breastfeed and I used to run. I couldn't wait. Yeah, it's not like you had cell phones then, so they'd come calling you in the... Calling me on the telephone, not on the other telephone. Yeah, they would call the... Yeah. Wow, that's amazing. So Keith and I have been living on Kibbutz Farazeh for more than 40 years. And Kwaraza 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 Kwaraza. And when we came to visit Kibbutz Kwaraza for the first time, we made a mistake and landed up in Gaza. And those days, the road was open. I remember like there were two soldiers like sitting next to the entrance 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 Kfaraza. It looks like we're in Gaza. So Keith said, OK, I'm going to ask this person that's driving the tractor how to get out of here and go back to get to Kfaraza. Because we got lost in Gaza. I remember 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 personal tractor and he told us how to go. Like a shortcut to Kvalaiza. 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 pavements 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. 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. So what transpired on October 7? Was it, do you want to talk about the day before, the weekend? Because it was a holiday. Keith and I were on Haifa. We went to visit my daughter, Shir. And there was a festival there. So we went to see different kinds of music. We went to see different kinds of music. I remember that Keith really had such a good time because there was Indian music. 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 fiancé Yuval, they were invited to go and sleep at some party at the sea with their friends near Haifa. So I told Kit, we're not going to stay. Let's go home. And Kit said that he wanted to see me. 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're going to sleep at home. And we arrived on Crize at 8 o'clock in the evening. 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. And then we went to sleep. not knowing anything. It was very quiet. Kibbutz Kfaraza, all you hear when it's quiet, the birds. But at half past six 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 next door, So next to the shelter, the 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. Do you live near Chen on that edge? Very close. Yeah, we live next to the gate. So we live... So like a kilometer and a half. Yeah. We can see Gaza and we can feel Gaza. So the rockets were coming out of Gaza and our house was shaking and you can hear the whistling. And I remember... looking at the rockets going over 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 Kerehaza all the time so there was tseva adom 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 Kruhaza 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 Ophir Liepstein had been killed. 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 in 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 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, OK, let's go to Tel Aviv. And I'm lucky. Because if it would have gone out, we wouldn't have been alive now. So I was sitting there with Keith and Keith is 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, the she used to write to everybody what's happening, she was killed very shortly after that happened. 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, 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. 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, Kit 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 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. Well, 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 hands on his head like that. And I understood that that's 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... I'm very close to Brodat and to Smadar and Idan. I'm their neighbours. And to Chen and to all the other people that were murdered in my neighbourhood. You feel like it's because you didn't put up a fight? 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 him taking pants and like throwing it at me that I must put them on, while I was shaking and scared. 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 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. Well, I don't know what they were looking for, but I think that that's what they were looking for, 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. They took us and they told us to put the sandals on and we're lucky because 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 window of the house while I couldn't even get to the ground. So I nearly fell down. I was fell and they did the same to Keith. It's like connected to the back of the it was like the room next to the mamad next to the little shelter of ours and they put like a chair but I had to like step out to pull myself down I'm I'm I was 62 years old then and I remember that 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 valad a child because there's a crib for my grandchildren and I said that there's no valad but they picked up everything and they opened the wick there the cupboards and shoved everything out of the cupboard to see if we are 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 sore. 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. 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. Soaping wet. Because I was holding Kit'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 Gaza, we could see the houses on fire already and 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, ala waqbar, shooting in the air. And Keith and I just wanted to cry and scream. And it was their 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 while the ladder was shaking with me. 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 with three yoga mattresses and we were told to sit there. And there was a chair from Plastic and I asked them for the chair because my back was sore from everything that I went through and I have back problems. 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... I 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 pyjamas, taken from our house in such a shock. A couple of minutes later, Somebody came from Farazza 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. 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. Well, Keith was in terrible pain already from his ribs being broken. And we started talking, and then the terrorist told him... Then he needs to 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. Betchen couldn't sit. She was standing and she said, they killed my daughter, they killed my daughter. She fainted. 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. Betchen 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 Hagdu and tried to calm her down. And Keith spoke to Gal and Tal. with the other boy that was with us from Prahaza and we just tried to help each other. There was blood all over and we just didn't understand what we're 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. Nobody ate that day. They brought us a packet of pitot and a box of cheese. I remember the next day after. Chen. made petot 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 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 thorough door 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. From there, Keith and I were moved 13 times. We met lots and lots of terrorists, each one of them. We're 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 o'clock 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 ghalabia and a white hat. And they put like a 2DZHUT. What's a 2DZHUT? An ID. 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 nobody checks the woman, they just check the men. So if they check him, they'll see that he has it in his pocket. Wow. 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 separated from all of them from Prahaza. 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 was like, I'm going to kill you. And I used to, like, jump. So I used to jump and, like, hold somebody's hands because it was hard for me 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 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, young girl, call me, and go through all their names like, and then I remember like after a couple of weeks, there was one of the names that I forgot about, that I didn't even remember that she sits next to the table. that 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. And they ran and they picked the cupboard up. It didn't hit us. We were very, very lucky because we had our knees with us. We were 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 Kate 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 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 gonna fall on you So whenever Keith said, I need to go to the bathroom, I used to shake and say, no, no, no, don't go now, don't go now, 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 for the 51 days that I was in Gaza. I didn't sleep because I was scared. I hardly ate. I lost 10 kilos. I had infection in my stomach shortly after we got to Gaza. And one of the times I was really really sick, I had a high temperature because the girls and kids could feel it and I could feel that I was shaking. Just like when you know that you got a temp 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 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's okay. Well, 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 to a hospital with Arabs and separate me from kids 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. Thank you. 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 Kit 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 food. So they were really, really, really starving. And I had an infection in my stomach, so I had a stomachache 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. What kinds of things were they doing? One of the times we were told just to be quiet and Keith said one word, so they threatened him. They brought the handcuffs and like shaked it to him and said that they're gonna handcuff him and started screaming at him in such a brutal way I thought they're gonna 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 by mostly thinking, what will happen if Kit will have to go to the bathroom again? 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 the 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 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 her 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. And I told her that she has to, that she just has to. And one of the times they took Keith into the bathroom, and shaved him looking like an Arab. They took all this off and left only this and shaved underneath his arms and said that he needs to shave his intimate place and when he came out after being in the 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 terrorist 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 they're 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 caught 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 calm down his body a little bit. It was sore. 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's okay with our finger up like that all the time. Tamam in Arabic. Well, nothing was okay. Nothing was okay. And one of the times I said to myself, I'm going to say that nothing's okay. I'm sick of time, tired playing the game. So I did this, like this. And that was a mistake because I got scrimped at. Scrimped at. And all I did is that, that nothing's 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 were just, the smell in the room was just disgusting from everybody because we didn't take any showers. Did they talk to you at all? Like, engage in conversations, trying to... 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. 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 we're going. That was like in the middle of the time that we were there in Gaza. 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 terrorist 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's 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, so it 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. 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 and we left 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 were 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 looking at Keith and thinking to myself, are we going to die? Are we going to die? And we're just lying and we could hardly talk. And we didn't have... hardly any water so we went for a sip 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 she didn't say a word. And I was looking at the packet and I was saying to myself, OK, 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... 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. So sorry. 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? Is Kit 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 Kit'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. And you're going to have to carry me all the stairs. And he looked at me and he did this, 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 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 and we looked at each other the three of us and we smiled and felt lucky that we're breathing air, just air. 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're 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 room next door, chewing, while they didn't bring us anything to eat. And one of the days after 24 hours, after 20 hours at least, the girl with us asked, when are we going to get some food? She did this, 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, my baby. You're losing weight too. And I said, no, Keith. I'm keeping them for you. Because one of the days when he got up to go to the bathroom, he nearly fell. He was so weak. And we didn't know what was going to happen. So I hid the pitot. 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 pitot 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're drinking in front of us. So he took the bottle and he held the bottle just like that. 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. And then after maybe 15 minutes or half an hour, he took the bottle in a brutal way, filled it up with water in the tap and threw it at us. And then while we're sleeping... I was covered 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 it like darkish. And they used to dress themselves, 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 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 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 that told the girl they like put the three mattresses it wasn't three mattresses sorry it was one mattress with a thin little mattress that you put over a mattress because there were two mattresses and something thin that he put over it because I asked him 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 with Keith's ribs broken, my back and Keith's back caught. Keith's 65, I'm 63. He didn't even care. It was cold. Keith was with shorts and short sleeve shirt. It was raining outside. So he had to be covered all the time with a blanket and lie down most of the time because he was cold. And they like closed us. They bought like a sofa. and they closed us. And they closed the curtains that we couldn't hardly see anything. So we weren't allowed to talk and we had cards that we couldn't play because we couldn't see the numbers. It was so dark. 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 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. 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 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 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 back 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 tried 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 and threw me into the car. And I sat 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 fell because we were tired, 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 thinking to myself, it's taking her quite a while. Where is she? And then she stepped into 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 terrorist 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 bums 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 you 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 terrorist 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 tell, that 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 it on the floor with a gun in front of her face and said one more word, I'm going to kill you. I had to say 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 and 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. That's the ocean, yeah? Wow. Unsported. I'll tell you about the girl. So, she got raised. And he took her in a brutal way, really a brutal way, and we were just so scared. 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 it 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's 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 gonna 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 lying you lying and she said that she's not lying and she didn't lie lying about what? She was lying. I need and also need to protect her kill. I don't want to So that's 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 her? Are they going to move her? And she sat there and we were just so upset, like just looking at each other. And then after maybe 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. Just to control us in every way they can. And then the last day was very strange. and different, they bought 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 quieter without all the rockets coming out of the houses and all the bombing. And we walked into the house and they told Keith to 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 her eyes and I didn't even hug Keith and say that, don't worry, I'm with you. Everything's gonna 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 10 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, 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 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. not sleeping. He wouldn't let me go to Keith. So I moved him 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 tried to think to myself, how come I even thought about saying that? Because I was threatened two seconds before that by the Hamas terrorists and I need to go. So how 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 he 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. Me? For more than a year? Have you had any more... So I want to tell you a couple of more things at the end of the day. But what did you want to ask? No, no, just go on. So they took me, only me. And I was scared. I didn't know if I'd ever see Keith again. And I didn't know what they were going to do to me. I did not have a clue of what they were 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 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 was 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. 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 Abiva Sigel, I'm from Kibbutz Kfaraza, I'm 62 years old, and that 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 maybe five terrorists. And I just had to try and figure out how am I going to breathe because I wanted to die. 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 8, Daphna and Ella. and Daphna looked at me and she said Aviva I'll never ever forget my sister screaming when they connected a finger that was disconnected you won't believe it they took her to a vet and they didn't put any anaesthetic 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, that she told me. That was it. 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's in a different car. When they came back, they told them that their father was killed. And then they said, 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 just 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 kids 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. 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 burnt her hand. And all the terrorists were only men, right? Did you ever see any women when you were walking around? 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 it to the doctor. 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 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 at the back of the van. And I was scared to turn around. And I was like 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 if anybody knows English and I said I do and he said tell her to pick her head up. 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 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 these. And I could see, because they didn't pick her shirt down, I could see she was with red marks all over her back. And I told them, sit her 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 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 terrorist 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 they'll cover a little bit of her feet. She was ice cold and they brought a blanket and I covered her and I started massaging her, massaging her and massaging her, 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 her children and her grandchildren. And I 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 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 a doctor came and tried to... I shoved 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 shouting and then we were taken to a place and we waited there for the Red Cross cars to come and waited for a short while while I'm holding her head. And then I was like, I'm going to be a doctor. shouting 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 cars came of the Red Cross while there were thousands of Hamas terrorists around us shouting. And taking pictures and screaming ala Wakbar 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 cars. And trying to smash all the windows while one of the terrorists, like, held 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, 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 the Hamas terrorists wouldn't let them go. So he had to stop. And like, for them to move. 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 were going to die. And 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 social workers and doctors that checked to see how we are. And then 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 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 Fraza, underneath the tunnel with us, he was holding his dog and he said that some of the blood is 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. but not being with Keith, being alone with the situation, seeing my three girls without him. And then she went and I saw her talking on the telephone. And after maybe five minutes or so, she came up to me and she said, You have four children. And I started crying and I said, But isn't she injured? Is he okay? because I knew that people were killed, shot, keepers shot. I was shot. The bullets didn't hit me, but I was shot. 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... So, so, 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 hot chocolate milk and it was just the best thing. But it was sweet and 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 okay. Nothing happened to him. They came, they were outside his house, they built a slick, they built, they brought all the guns and put underneath his house for hours and that's why he heard the Arabic and at five o'clock 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. So he shouted from inside that it's Shai that is alive and they told him to open the window and at five o'clock in the afternoon the soldiers climbed into Shai's house and they killed the Hamas terrorists that came to take all the guns from underneath Shai's house and they were with him until five o'clock the next morning until they took him out of the house. of Kfaraza. And Keith is still there. The girls are still there. And Keith doesn't know the child is alive. He doesn't know what's happened on Kfaraza. 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's 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 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've 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 kids 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. The leaders of this world will leave the hostages knowing in what conditions they are in. I was there and I've been talking about the conditions for more than 10 months, about nearly dying so many times, and they just left there. They left there to die. Terrible. Please God, he's okay. 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 just 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, 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. And 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, I didn't have one, one second to relax. Not one. For 51 days, not even one, death was there all the time. It was, oh, they're going to kill us, or I'm going to die from something, or the ceiling will fall on us, or the bombs will fall on us, or they're just going to kill us. And I just can't believe it, that Ketan Nostradamus 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. 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. That's how it's out. That's how it's out. 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 try to They... ...shouldn't hurt women and children and things like that or...? 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 allow themselves to do anything, anything, everything they want to, they do. Anything they want to. Tell us to sit half the night Well, 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 say, sorry, we don't have any place to take you to. So why did you tell us to get dressed? And when you guys were transporting from place to place, did you ever have the feeling like you want to escape somehow? No, they were on us with their guns all the time, with their knives, with their guns, all the time. So the other citizens that see you... They know that you're hostages, right? We walked in the town with people looking at us, but I didn't feel that anybody was staring at us and things that we were 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's the most sensitive person in earth. But he's stronger than me maybe. No, no, no It's been, we're October 21st, 2024, so it's been for 381 days? 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 Hirsch 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 pyjamas 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. But my biggest hope, more than anything else, is that kid 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. Is there any a time that you guys thought maybe you were near Sinhuao or something like that? Like, because they're always talking about... 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 more than that. And I believed them when they said that there's no Israel. I believed them. I thought we're gonna stay there until we die. That we've been forgotten. 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? 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 Kwaraza, 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 Gaza 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 how it's supposed to be. 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... South 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 are we from? And I said, from Israel. They turned around. And that's 15 years ago. So much hate. There's so much hate. If we take all the hate that there is in the world and move it to love, instead of all the demonstrations in the United States against Israel, rather than 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. It just becomes hate and it drives me crazy because I'm not that kind of person and Keith's not that kind of person at all. Keith will do anything for anybody. Anything for anybody. It's alright and I agree. 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 gonna 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. 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. 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. I just wish and hope. That this history of 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. Please God, please God, thank you, thank you. So did you ever find out what happened to the elderly lady that was with you in the car with the Red Cross? Her name is Elma. She's from Kibbutz Nachalos. She's 84 years old. 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. Wow. 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. And you said she was very cold when you met her? Her body temperature was 28 degrees. She was freezing, freezing cold. Wow. 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's what kept her going. They said that if I wouldn't have done that, she would have been dead already. You're also the strongest person you've ever met. I'll be dumb. Keith is. Wait for Keith. Amen. Can't wait till he comes back and hopefully it will be very, very soon because the witch is dead. Thank you. Cut.