Idit Ohel learned on Monday that her son was being starved and chained in an underground tunnel with multiple untreated wounds
February 11, 2025 10:17
The mother of a hostage held in Gaza has pleaded for his return after finding out from freed hostages that her son is injured and being held in chains by Hamas.
Idit Ohel received information on Sunday from freed hostages about the shocking conditions in which her son Alon has been held for the last15 months.
Talented pianist Alon Ohel turned 24 in Hamas captivity on Monday, marking his second birthday as a hostage (photo courtesy of the family)[Missing Credit]
Alon, who turned 24 on Monday in Hamas captivity, is reportedly being held ‘close to starving’ and in chains with multiple untreated wounds, according to Eli Sharabi and Or Levy, who spent 491 days alongside him in Hamas tunnels.
Speaking to Israel’s Channel 12 on Sunday, Ohel described how her son had been wounded in his eye and was not receiving medical attention while being held underground with little to no sustenance. “He has shrapnel in his eye, he has shrapnel in his shoulder, he has shrapnel in his arm. Alon was bound in chains this entire time, and he had almost no food – at most one pita a day, over a very, very, very long time, more than a year.”
According to testimony from Sharabi and Levy, her son’s injuries include only being able to see “shadows” out of his wounded eye.
Despite not having seen her son for 15 months — and only just receiving the first sign of life since his abduction — Ohel told journalists that the two share a “thread”, which she described as a metaphorical “umbilical cord” that she can feel “physically”.
“I see it, it’s red, it’s very, very thick, and for now, he’s taking a lot, a lot, a lot of energy from me, because he doesn’t have enough because he doesn’t get food.”
Before she knew for certain Alon was being starved from the testimony of freed hostages, Ohel said she knew it instinctively because the “umbilical cord” she was imagining was thin, and now it’s very thick, “which means that he needs a lot of nourishing”.
She also drew parallels with Alon’s great-grandfather, a Holocaust survivor who endured the horrors of Auschwitz. When he finally left the death camp, he weighed only 30 kilograms.
“He survived, and he came to Israel and he made a beautiful family. I think the fact that Alon is a descendent of him [means] he has the strength, because it’s in his genes to know how to survive,” said Ohel. “That’s why he’s so strong.”
The intelligence about Alon’s condition was communicated to his mother via the IDF and Idit criticised Prime Minister Netanyahu for failing to reach out to her in the wake of the news.
“The saddest thing is that you feel you're neglected and they don't care about your son,” said Ohel during a press briefing with journalists on Monday.
However, she praised Israel’s President Isaac Herzog, who has contacted her “almost every day” since October 7, as well as US lobbying group AIPAC and representatives from Serbia and Germany, where Alon holds citizenship.
“But from this government, from the Knesset, from influential people in this deal — no one has called me up… not my prime minister and not any of them… which is sad.”
Idit Ohel (centre), mother of hostage Alon Ohel, has called for his release after receiving a first sign of life in 492 days from released captives who were held with him. (Getty Images)AFP via Getty Images
When questioned about the Red Cross, Ohel told reporters she had met with officials on several occasions and had questioned them on why they had been unable to meet the hostages during their captivity.
“They said they cannot go because Hamas doesn’t let them. That was their case. Why do they even exist if they can’t help?”
Ohel teared up when describing the condition of her son, who was kidnapped from a bomb shelter at the Nova festival site alongside Levy, released on Saturday, and Eliya Cohen, who is also still being held in Gaza.
Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was killed by Hamas alongside five other hostages up to two days before their bodies were recovered by the IDF, was also kidnapped from the bomb shelter.
“Out of the 27 people that were in that bomb shelter, only seven survived and three others were kidnapped. It’s very horrifying to know that he had all that, and he’s still being tortured every day.
“They get a piece of bread a day. Can you live on a piece of bread a day? I don’t think so. That’s why they look like that. They sleep on the ground, they have no mattresses, nothing,” Ohel said.
Calls for a deal to release all the remaining hostages at once grew in Israel following widespread outrage at the emaciated state of the three hostages released on Saturday, who were described by the Israeli health ministry as experiencing “severe malnutrition”.
Hamas escort Israeli hostage Or Levy on a stage before his release on February 8, 2025, as part of the fifth hostage-prisoner exchange of a fragile ceasefire. (Getty Images)AFP via Getty Images
According to testimony from freed captives, hostages were choked, hung from the ceiling and starved by Hamas during their time in the tunnels, and given little to no water for days.
Alon has not been listed as one of the so-called 33 “humanitarian” cases who will be released in phase one of the hostage-ceasefire deal.
“I do not understand this list. I will never understand the first list, the 33, when I see my son is not different [to the] others,” said Ohel. “The urgency was always there, I think now more than ever the urgency for me is understanding why Alon is not in phase one when he is in this situation.”
Around a thousand people gathered in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv on Monday evening to celebrate Alon’s 24th birthday — the second he has spent in captivity.
Alon’s sister's birthday was on February 8, and from captivity, he managed to send his birthday wishes via the released Sharabi, asking him to pass a message on to her. “She got from Alon a birthday wish — to hear from her brother, which is incredible,” their anguished mother said as she broke down in tears.
Meanwhile, Professor Hagai Levine, head of the health team at the Hostages Families Forum, told The JC that the captives are in “immediate life-threatening danger”.
He warned that the malnourished state of Sharabi, Levy, and Ben-Ami was just the tip of the iceberg. “This is only a glimpse into the brutal, inhumane conditions that the hostages endure. When we see them, we don’t see what’s [going on] inside,” he said.
Forensic reports and testimony from freed captives indicate that hostages are tied for many days with their legs and hands, and “treated worse than animals,” he said.
Levine warned that the hostages have been returning to Israel with “multisystem damage”, with extreme malnutrition weakening the immune system such that contracting a minor viral infection in the winter could prove deathly. He noted that the captives are vulnerable to respiratory illnesses, cardiovascular failure, heart problems, hypothermia in the winter, permanent disability due to being tired up for prolonged periods of time, and vitamin D deficiencies from a lack of exposure to sunlight for 15 months.
Speaking anonymously to Channel 12 via his family, one freed hostage described having to learn how to walk again after being shackled in a dark tunnel for more than a year.
Levine raised the alarm about the mental health of hostages who have been isolated from friends and family since October 7. “They could suffer from depression, from anxiety, from post-traumatic stress disorder, but it’s not post-traumatic because they’re still in the trauma.”