Gali and Ziv Berman, the 28-year-old twins who were held for two years in Hamas captivity in Gaza, opened up about their kidnapping, captivity, release and recovery in a wide-ranging interview about their ordeal that aired Saturday evening.
The two fraternal twins were taken hostage by terrorists from Kibbutz Kfar Aza during the Hamas-led invasion and onslaught in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, along with 17 other Kfar Aza residents. They were released in the truce that began in October, and are now looking to move forward.
“We don’t want to deal with the misery anymore,” Gali said in the interview with Channel 12, which was filmed on the front porch of their house and around Kfar Aza.
Ziv agreed: “We had misery for two years. Enough, that’s it.”
After a few laughs, the two described their two-year odyssey, beginning with their abduction.
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According to Gali, he awoke to rocket sirens when the first barrage began around 6:30 a.m. on October 7. He then got a video call from Emily Damari, a close friend from the Kibbutz.
Israeli soldiers survey the destruction caused by Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, near the Israel-Gaza border, in southern Israel, October 15, 2023. (Chaim Goldberg/ Flash90)
“I’m scared. Can you come, please?” she said, according to Gali. He then ran to her house, unaware that Hamas-led terrorists were already running roughshod through the kibbutz.
When he arrived at Damari’s house, the two waited inside her shelter with her small dog, Chucha. The house was soon surrounded by gunmen.
“They shot the dog, shot Emily, and told us: ‘Come on, get up!’” Gali recalled. The two were then taken into Gaza, with Damari suffering a gunshot wound to her hand, which would eventually cost her two fingers.
Separately, back at their house, Gali’s brother Ziv was also captured.
The twins were held in different tunnels in severe conditions for the first months of the war, and were both unaware that the other had been taken hostage, or that they had even survived the initial attack.
Despite the difficult conditions, Gali refused to give up hope of seeing his twin brother again: “Every day I told them: ‘I want to see my brother,’” he said, after learning that his brother was also a hostage.
The images of hostages Gali and Ziv Berman, in Kfar Aza, October 7, 2025. (Luke Tress/Times of Israel)
After 183 days, Gali was moved to another tunnel, fitted with a microphone, and placed in front of a video camera. Moments later, Ziv was brought in.
“I saw Gali, ran to him and started crying,” Ziv recalled, adding that they embraced for nearly ten minutes as their captors filmed the reunion.
They were only allowed to remain together for two days, they said.
According to Ziv, Hamas operatives told them they “could not be held together,” since if something were to happen to both of them, “your mother wouldn’t have to cry twice.”
Gali chimed in sarcastically: “See how considerate they are?”
“It’s like they take a part of your body away from you,” he said of their separation.
Screenshot of former hostages Gali (R) and Ziv Berman, alongside their mother Talia, in an interview with Channel 12, aired January 3, 2025. (Screenshot/Channel 12)
‘I didn’t want to be seen as weak’
The twins’ mother, Talia, said that she waited 11 days to first receive information about her sons’ fates after October 7.
When she received intelligence suggesting they were alive, she struggled to believe it: “I felt they were lying to me,” she said. “There was a total breakdown. I mourned both sons.”
It was only on the 50th day, she said, after hostages who were released in the November 2023 ceasefire told her they had seen the twins alive, that she allowed herself to hope.
Throughout most of the two years that her sons were held hostage, Talia avoided public appearances. “I didn’t want to be seen as weak,” she explained.
The public campaign for the twins’ return was led largely by her sister, the boys’ aunt Maccabit Meyer. Talia’s lack of public presence at hostage rallies and on television, however, led the Berman twins to fear that she had died.
Maccabit Meyer, aunt of hostages Ziv Berman and Gali Berman, at an event marking 500 days since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, on Azza Street in Jerusalem, February 17, 2025. (Jessica Steinberg/Times of Israel)
“I knew my mom would turn the world upside down for me, do everything,” Ziv said, “but when I didn’t see her anywhere, I said: Okay, maybe the worst happened.”
Gali and Ziv’s father, Doron, has Parkinson’s Disease, a condition that deteriorated significantly during his sons’ time in captivity. When Talia first broke the news to him that the twins had been captured, “it was the hardest day of his life,” she said.
Understanding the magnitude of the catastrophe that had befallen his family, he stopped eating, drinking and taking medication. He was hospitalized and remains in the hospital even now.
Fear of imminent death
Turning to their captivity, Ziv detailed one of the most terrifying moments of his time in Gaza, which he endured with fellow hostage Omri Miran, as Israeli military activity intensified on the ground above their tunnel.
“A D9 [armored bulldozer] above us, tanks above us, you hear houses collapsing on you, sand falling on you, the whole tunnel moves,” he said.
An explosion erupts as a dark smoke plume rises in the Gaza Strip during the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian terror group Hamas on January 31, 2024. (Jack Guez/AFP)
Their captors shouted: “The army is here, the army is coming down, the army is in the tunnel.” Ziv recalled. “I start to feel — don’t know if it’s hyperventilation or adrenaline — but my legs are shaking.”
Believing death was imminent, he said, “Omri and I already began saying goodbye.”
Gali, who was held in a different tunnel, said he endured captivity thanks to a hidden notebook, in which he wrote down his dreams and fears.
Beachside BBQ with Hamas chief
The twins’ first meeting was not the only time they would be reunited inside Gaza, as another would come in the form of an odd event that took place in early 2025, after a ceasefire was signed that January.
To celebrate the war’s pause, Ziv recalled, Hamas’s Gaza chief Izz al-Din al-Haddad took several hostages, including both Berman twins, to the beach for a barbecue, where they grilled meat alongside armed operatives.
Hamas Gaza chief Izz al-Din Haddad, then the commander of Hamas’s Gaza City Brigade, is seen in a video released by Hamas’s military wing in May 2022.
“They filmed a nice video, with a long table set up with all sorts of fruit and vegetables,” he said, describing the elaborate setup for a propaganda video, which Hamas never released.
“[Haddad] ate alongside us,” he continued, adding that he spoke with the hostages only in Hebrew.
“It’s all a big act for him,” Gali said of Haddad, who assumed the terror group’s top position in Gaza after Israel killed October 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar in October 2024.
The Berman twins were then separated again, and would not see each other until their release over nine months later.
‘My family is whole again’
Just over two years after they were captured, on October 9, 2025, Israel and Hamas agreed to a US-brokered ceasefire and hostage release deal, and the brothers were set to return home.
They were finally reunited for a third and final time when they were transferred from the Red Cross, which received the released hostages from Hamas, into Israeli military custody to be escorted back into Israel. They were then taken to the Re’im base just inside Israeli territory, where they reunited with their mother.
Gali and Ziv Berman following their release from two years of captivity in Gaza, October 13, 2025. (Eran Yarden/Government Press Office)
After initial medical examinations and a few days’ stay in a hospital, they were finally taken to their father, Doron.
“He looked at them, looking from side to side with his beautiful green eyes, as if he couldn’t believe it,” Talia said of the reunion, though she said that Doron’s condition had worsened to the point where he could no longer speak.
“Look, Doron will never be healthy, okay?” Talia said, “But he’s with us, he experiences things and he feels things, and I finally feel that my family is whole again.”
Trauma and hope
While the twins were overjoyed to be back home, they said that the intense trauma of their captivity lingers.
“There’s no shortage,” Ziv admitted.
“Just a few days ago I saw Chucha in a dream,” Gali added, recalling Emily Damari’s dog, who was killed during their abduction.
Their mother, Talia, remains anxious.
When she asked whether they had suffered severe abuse, Gali deflected with humor: “They bathed me. I needed a shower.”
Gali (L) and Ziv Berman interviewed in New York on November 18, 2025 (Screen grab/Channel 12 news)
Even though the twins are back in Israel, they have not returned to Kfar Aza, which was ravaged on October 7 and has yet to be fully rebuilt. For now, the Bermans live in Kibbutz Beit Guvrin, an hour north of where they grew up.
“Can anyone guarantee me safety there?” Gali responded when asked if he was ready to move back home.
For Talia, the answer is clear: “No experience will ever repair what we went through. That chapter is over.”