A 16-year-old Israeli girl freed from Hamas captivity said Tuesday that one of her captors repeatedly touched her and told her she would not be released with the others so he could marry her.
Dafna Elyakim, who was taken hostage during Hamas’ October 7 assault on southern Israel, shared her account at a youth event organized by Israel’s Civil Public Diplomacy Directorate.
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Dafna Elyakim shared her account at a youth event organized by the Civil Public Diplomacy Directorate
(Photo: Barel Malik)
“One of the terrorists kept touching me,” she said. “He said everyone else would be freed, and I would stay with him so he could marry me.” Elyakim added that the same man insisted on escorting her to the shower, but she refused.
Another former hostage, Omer Wenkert, also spoke at the event, describing the traumatic experience of his abduction and months in captivity. “On the way to the party, we joked it would be a shame if there were rockets — and then it really happened,” he said. “We ran to the car, hid, and minutes later I was underground.”
Wenkert said he was initially held with another hostage, Liel Or, but later spent 179 days alone. “The hardest part was the confinement,” he said. “I couldn’t stand or jump. On my birthday, they beat me. I just prayed that next year they wouldn’t.”
He said he felt abandoned by Israel’s leadership while in captivity but trusted the public had not forgotten the hostages. “It wasn’t until June that others joined me, people who had access to real information,” he said. “When I got back, I was shocked to learn how many people were working around the clock to bring us home. That helped ease the lies they fed us — that no one wanted us.”
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Wenkert called on Israelis to keep the fate of the hostages above political divisions. “This isn’t about right or left,” he said. “This is about human lives. Hamas is a brutal organization. They’re not fighting for Palestine anymore — they just want to kill Jews.”