A 72-year-old Israeli hostage, held by Hamas for 129 days, was forced to cook for his captors while surviving on meagre rations. Louis Har said he prepared meals for five Hamas militants in a small Gaza apartment but barely got anything to eat.
"I prepared the food. I cooked," Mr Har told The NY Post. "In the beginning, there were a lot of products for cooking. We had a lot of eggs. I'd make shakshuka. I'd make omelettes. I'd make salads and soups using tomatoes and beans and whatever else they gave me."
Mr Har recalled only one instance when a guard thanked him.
The situation worsened as Israel's war on Gaza went on. Food supplies dwindled, and Mr Har and another hostage were left sharing a single pita and a litre of water per day.
"Slowly, slowly, the food became less," Har recounted. "First there were no more eggs. Then there were fewer pitas. In the last days, it was just Fernando (another hostage) and me, and we shared one pita a day."
The two men later resorted to hiding their food under a pillow. "Otherwise one of the terrorists would just eat whatever he'd see," he told the outlet.
During his captivity, Mr Har's health deteriorated drastically. Weighing 81 kg when taken from Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak, he lost 15 kg before his release in February earlier this year. Israeli health officials have reported that some hostages lost up to 40 per cent of their body weight due to malnutrition.
Hostages also lived in constant fear of execution. "We would sleep but with one eye open," Mr Har said. "These are Hamas, and if someone tells them to kill us, they'll do it."
Basic hygiene was almost nonexistent. Mr Har said he and his fellow captives were allowed to "shower" once every two weeks, sharing a single bucket of cold water. They were never given fresh clothes and had to endure winter with only a sheet and a pair of socks that had holes.
Earlier, another freed Israeli hostage Eli Sharabi told the UN Security Council that Hamas militants hoarded UN aid, using it to feast while keeping Israeli captives in chains and starving them.
Held underground for 491 days, Mr Sharabi was shackled, beaten, and given minimal food. He claimed to have seen Hamas fighters storing humanitarian supplies meant for Palestinian refugees.
Of the 59 hostages still unaccounted for, at least 24 are believed to be alive and 35 are presumed dead. The prospect of more hostage releases remains uncertain after the ceasefire collapsed last week when Israel launched a wave of deadly airstrikes on Gaza.
Hamas has demanded a full IDF withdrawal in exchange for all surviving hostages - a condition Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has firmly rejected, saying, "negotiations will take place only under fire."
