Andrey Kozlov, who was rescued from Gaza in last month’s dramatic special forces raid, has revealed chilling new details about his time in captivity in an interview about the ordeal (click here for full interview).

Initially struggling to describe the horror of his experiences in an interview with the JC, Kozlov said there was a period when he was “leashed like a dog” and humiliated with taunts as he attempted to relieve himself.

He also revealed he was initially kept for months in the home of a Palestinian family who lived their lives normally while he was guarded by armed Hamas terrorists in an area cordoned off by blankets.

Kozlov, 27, said he was beaten five or six times a day and forced to study the Koran regularly.

“I was held in a dark flat with hermetically closed windows,” he said. “I couldn’t see anything, and I wasn’t sure if it was day or night.

“For two months, our hands were tied behind our backs, and our legs were shackled with rusty chains that hurt terribly and made it difficult to sit or lie down.”

Andrey Kozlov

Kozlov, a Russian migrant to Israel, was also forced to defecate and urinate in front of the terrorists.

On one occasion, he said, “they just placed an empty bottle in front of me and instructed me to urinate into it while my hands were tied behind my back.

“When they discovered I was struggling, they dragged me to the bathroom, leashed like a dog, while shouting ‘go-go-go’. I said that I needed to take my pants off but my hands were tied.

“They laughed and continued to drag me with the rope while chanting ‘go-go-go’. It was humiliating. I was totally helpless.”

Kozlov – who was rescued after 246 days in captivity together with Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan and Shlomi Ziv – said he survived the “indescribable suffering” by repeating to himself the advice from Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl’s book: “If you have something to live for, like a loving family, or some work to finish, then you can survive anything.”

Hostages freed alongside Kozlov being greeted by their relatives

When he was snatched on October 7, Kozlov mistakenly thought that he was being rescued by Israeli forces from the ditch in which he was hiding. “I had no idea I was being kidnapped,” he said.

But the armed men were terrorists.