reSee.it Podcast Summary
On October 7, rockets shattered the night as chaos unfurled at the Nova Festival, and one woman found herself fighting to stay alive inside a world where every moment could be the last. Kidnapped with other revelers after the assault, she rode for hours in a car under fire, bullets pooling on the windows, as a city tried to understand what was happening. Nearly five hours later, she was separated from friends, running, hiding, and then pushed into a nightmare without end.
Her captivity stretched to 54 days across five houses and 11 moves. She was mistaken for a soldier because of green trousers and boots, and the captors demanded why she wore that uniform. She endured beatings, abuse, and daily psychological pressure; at one point a group of 10 terrorists dragged her along as she clung to life with two broken legs. She pretended to be Arab to avoid harm, even as a necklace, jewelry pieces, and hair were ripped away.
Within the hospital room, about 30 Hamas fighters looted and peered at her, forcing a cast on her broken leg and treating her as a potential officer. She survived days when water was scarce—20 ml at a stretch—while the food and showers were rationed. A moment of peril came when a crowd near the car nearly lynched her; she was pulled from the tree and saved as the car's doors closed, and she heard the crowd celebrate a victory she did not feel. Days later, she was walked through a street at gunpoint, then into a Red Cross convoy, then toward home.
On release, a phone call with an Israeli officer confirmed that her family survived and that she would go home—yet the world she rejoined did not erase the trauma. She spoke of faith as a sustaining force, of the human complexity she found in both captors and bystanders, and of a longing for peace and for the return of all hostages. She urged a simple, urgent question: what do we want to wake up believing each morning, and how can that aim guide our actions toward ending this cycle of violence.