Bibas also criticised Israeli PM Netanyahu’s decision to resume the war in March following the expiration of the ceasefire, fearing it would endanger the remaining hostages. He responded firmly to Netanyahu’s strategy, saying: “No. No.”
Describing the conditions of his captivity, he recalled: “It’s scary. You don’t know when [Israeli strikes will occur]. And when it happens, you’re afraid for your life.” He added: “The whole earth would move — like an earthquake, but [I was] underground, so everything could collapse at any moment.”
Bibas also shared the heartbreaking details of the murders of his wife and two young sons, which he only received confirmation of upon his release almost 500 days later, saying: “They were murdered in cold blood — bare hands.”
But, he added that his Hamas captors told him: “‘Oh, it doesn’t matter. You get a new wife, new kids. Better wife, better kids.’ They said that many times.”
During the interview Bibas wore a t-shirt printed with pictures of hostage brothers David and Ariel Cunio, his friends from Kibbutz Nir Oz, who remain in Gaza.
He expressed concern for their health, saying “I don’t know if they have enough food, enough water, especially now when the war is back on,” and reflected on their close bond: “[David] was with me in every big thing in my life. He was in my wedding. I lost my wife and kids. Sharon [Cunio] must not lose her husband.
Elsewhere in the programme, US-Israeli Keith Siegel, who was held captive by Hamas for 484 days, described witnessing the sexual assault of female hostages by their captors.
“I saw sexual assault with female hostages,” Siegel recalled, emphasising that the abuse was "literal torture — not just in a figurative sense".
Left to right: Former hostages Aviva Siegel, Agam Berger and Keith Siegel on CBS’s ’60 Minutes’ on March 30, 2025 (CBS/60 Minutes)[Missing Credit]
He said that he and his wife Aviva were “gasping for our breath” as they were dragged into Hamas tunnels underneath the Gaza Strip. After the first ceasefire in November 2023, during which Aviva freed, his treatment apparently grew worse. “The terrorists became very mean and very cruel and violent. Much more so. They were beating me and starving me,” he said.
Siegel recalled that hostages were only allowed to shower with a bucket of cold water and a small cup once a month and that his captors shaved him, leaving him feeling “humiliated”.
Meanwhile, Aviva embraced fellow former hostage Agam Berger, with whom she reunited during the CBS show, saying that Berger kept smiling throughout their time in captivity and that it gave all of her fellow hostages a great deal of strength. She recalled how she and Berger used to hold hands and look into each other’s eyes to try and mitigate their fear.
Keith used the interview to call for urgent action, urging the US and Israeli governments to resume negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage release agreement and warning that every day of delay meant “more suffering and more possible death and psychological devastation”.
In the final part of the show, Tal Shoham, who was released from Gaza last month, shared the harrowing experience of being held with Guy Gilboa-Dalal and Evyatar David, who are still in Hamas hands. He recalled how they openly discussed taking their own lives due to the inhumane conditions they faced: “One of the toughest things that I heard from them — they told me more than once, ‘Why stay alive?’ Why not just take their own life with their own hands and finish it… to get released from this?”
Shoham, 40, described becoming a father-like figure to the 23-year-old captives and expressed his deep concern for their well-being, saying: “I really, really fear that they are now alone.”
Freed Israeli hostage Tal Shoham on CBS's 60 Minutes, March 30, 2025 (CBS 60 minutes)[Missing Credit]
He also recounted how the captors forced Gilboa-Dalal and David to attend and watch a hostage release ceremony, only to return them to the tunnels afterward.
During the joint interview, Shoham described how Gilboa-Dalal cried for days after being captured and the brutal living conditions in narrow tunnels.
“We were given minute amounts of pita bread, rice and water,” Shoham recalled, noting that the water sometimes “tasted like blood, sometimes like iron. Sometimes it was so salty that you could not drink it, but you don’t have anything else”.
He revealed that their captors told them they were given the bare minimum food to survive for years, mocking: “You won’t die, but you will have the worst time.”
To get additional food, he claimed the hostages had to give back rubs to their captors. “It’s worse than how they treat animals,” said Gilboa-Dalal’s father, Ilan.
