As Jews celebrate freedom this Passover, my fellow – Latest News
My identify is Keith Siegel. I’m an American grandfather who survived 484 days in Gaza.
On October 7, 2023, my spouse Aviva and I had been violently kidnapped from our home by Hamas terrorists. I used to be shot within the hand and broke some ribs during the kidnapping, accidents not handled till my return to Israel.
Aviva was launched after 51 days. Our parting phrases had been a promise to stay robust for one another and survive. I used to be lastly launched in February, after enduring practically 16 months in captivity.
I’m sharing my story as a result of as Jews world wide put together for Passover, the competition of freedom, we should keep in mind the 59 hostages in Gaza who nonetheless lack that freedom — and what they’re going through: bodily abuse, psychological torture, isolation, and deprivation of primary requirements.
My expertise was brutal: I used to be held within the suffocating heat of tunnels 130 toes underground. I witnessed excessive violence — hostages handcuffed, overwhelmed, and sexually assaulted.
A feminine hostage was gagged and sure whereas her toes had been overwhelmed with metallic rods. I stood paralyzed, unable to help.
These recollections of medieval torture nonetheless hang-out me to this day.
President Trump stands subsequent to launched Israeli hostages, Keith Siegel, Aviva Siegel and Iair Horn, during the National Republican Congressional Committee on April 8, 2025. REUTERS
Contrary to standard perception, the terrorists who held me weren’t ravenous; they ate effectively whereas we starved. I’d make 4 bites of rice final for 20 bites, eating slowly to savor each morsel of food. By the time I used to be launched, I weighed simply 125 kilos, down from about 190.
I knew resistance meant death. I couldn’t battle or escape. I used to be deep inside Gaza; the place might I am going?
I didn’t resist once they kicked or spat on me. Nor once they shaved my physique to humiliate me.
Not even when one locked me in a room, pointed a pistol at my head and stated, “I’m going to kill you now.”
When compelled to make propaganda videos, I complied.
When they tried to transform me to Islam, I recited their phrases.
I did discover one small space of control: I refused to beg.
The worse they handled me — the beatings, hunger, humiliation — the much less I needed to ask for something.
For six months of my captivity, I used to be utterly alone in isolation.
To keep myself mentally robust, I counted days by the mosque’s calls to prayer. I sang James Taylor songs in my thoughts. I held every day conversations with my household in my head, together with with my 96-year-old mom in North Carolina. Sadly, she handed away during my captivity, and I by no means had a ultimate probability to hug her goodbye.
After more than a 12 months of this nightmare, President Donald Trump was elected, and the whole lot modified in a single day.
His victory reworked my destiny and that of 37 different hostages. Within days, negotiations resumed, and the deal that introduced me home was signed.
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When lastly launched, I emerged bodily damaged, however I had achieved my mission: fulfilling my promise to Aviva to outlive.
Just weeks after my release, I had the consideration of assembly President Trump in particular person.
Despite my weakened situation, I knew I needed to make the journey. It wasn’t straightforward to board a airplane so quickly after leaving these suffocating tunnels in Gaza. But I needed to do it, not simply to thank the person who saved my life, however for these I left behind.
As President Trump grasped my hand, I noticed in his eyes a real willpower to complete what he began and convey everybody home.
Other hostages launched during the deal, like me, have described the dire situations confronted by these nonetheless in captivity: chained in filth and squalor in tiny tunnels, with out air, gentle, sanitation, food, or water — day by day, one other day of unimaginable struggling.
I feel continually of Matan Angrest, who spent weeks with me in captivity earlier than we had been separated. He was simply 21 when captured.
How is he surviving now, so many months later? Does he nonetheless have that spark of hope in his eyes? Or has it dimmed after watching hostage after hostage being launched whereas he stays?
Matan and the others need America’s continued strain to convey them home.
As an American, I’m proud to have President Trump as my president. Thanks to him, I used to be reunited with my spouse, kids, and grandchildren.
Please, President Trump, proceed the extraordinary work you’ve accomplished. Get us a deal to convey all of them back — those that are nonetheless dwelling and those that have tragically misplaced their lives and deserve correct burial.
We can’t abandon these people to the darkness I’ve simply escaped.
I managed to outlive 484 days in captivity, however these nonetheless trapped in Hamas’s tunnels received’t be capable of maintain on for much longer.
I’m so fortunate to have the ability to recite the story of the Passover exodus with my household this 12 months. But although I’ll seem free, none of us really are, till all of the hostages return home.
