Chilling testimony: "Hamas shot one of the hostages dead on the way to Gaza"

Freed hostage Eliya Cohen shared the harrowing story of his abduction and the unbearable conditions he endured in Hamas captivity. He described the moments of his abduction to Gaza, saying: "I hear them rejoicing, going wild, and cheering as if they had won. They beat us relentlessly, hitting us with rifle butts to the head, stepping on us, and spitting on us."

Next to them, another hostage tried to escape by jumping from the vehicle. "He decided to take the situation into his own hands and said, ‘I’m jumping.’ We told him, ‘Don’t do it,’ but while the truck was moving, he did it anyway. They stopped the truck, shot him dead, and we continued the drive to Gaza as if nothing had happened, as if a guy didn’t just jump and get shot, and we just kept going."

Eliyah explained: "For months on end, we were kept with chains on our legs. The only time they took the chains off your legs was purely when you went to shower, which was once every two months. You have six chain links of space, and suddenly you find yourself with three links or four links. They tie it tighter to your leg, and when they tie it tighter, it’s very hard to sleep because your legs get cut from the friction."

Eliyah also described moments of humiliation he endured there: "They would come into our room once or twice a week and say, ‘Come on, everyone take off your clothes and underwear.’" They checked if they were thin enough and decided whether to cut back on their food based on that. "It’s like they held a discussion about it."

He said: "You look at them and see the smile on their faces, and you realize it’s nonsense, but you wonder how low people can sink. There’s nothing more Nazi-like than this. I hate comparisons to the Holocaust, but this is as close as it gets."