{"id":137552,"date":"2025-11-17T07:08:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T07:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/137552\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T07:08:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T07:08:09","slug":"ex-hostage-avinatan-or-details-gaza-escape-attempt-and","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/137552\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-hostage Avinatan Or details Gaza escape attempt and"},"content":{"rendered":"

Avinatan Or<\/a>, a hostage recently freed after more than two years in Hamas captivity, revealed new details overnight Monday about a failed escape attempt that led his captors to significantly worsen his conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tried to escape. I dug for weeks,\u201d Or said in a recorded address played at the Jewish Federations of North America conference in Washington. \u201cI made myself work to change my fate. One night, I got out and saw the stars. I wrote ‘Hostage’ on a sandbag. But they discovered it and beat me for days.\u201d<\/p>\n

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2 View gallery <\/p>\n

\"\u05d0\u05d1\u05d9\u05e0\u05ea\u05df<\/a>\"\u05d0\u05d1\u05d9\u05e0\u05ea\u05df<\/p>\n

Avinatan Or upon his return home <\/p>\n

(Photo: Shalev Shalom)<\/p>\n

His remarks, first aired by Army Radio, provided one of the clearest public accounts yet of life in captivity in the Gaza Strip following his abduction from the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023.<\/p>\n

Or\u2019s father, Yaron, had previously said his son\u2019s conditions deteriorated after the escape attempt, with terrorists subjecting him to physical abuse.<\/p>\n

For much of his time in captivity, Or, who is nearly two meters tall (about 6 feet 7 inches), was held in solitary confinement\u2014bound to bars inside a cage barely taller than himself and only slightly longer than the thin mattress he slept on. Earlier, he had been confined to a slightly larger caged space where he was still unable to walk freely.<\/p>\n

Or said he was mostly kept in the dark, both physically and informationally, receiving only fragments of news from his captors, who often misled him. At one point, he was falsely told that his girlfriend, Noa Argamani<\/a>\u2014who was kidnapped with him<\/a>\u2014had been released, when in fact she was still in captivity.Or was released after 738 days in Gaza<\/a> as part of a hostage deal. Argamani was freed separately during Operation Arnon<\/a> on June 8, 2024. One of the most iconic images from the October 7 attack showed Argamani being dragged away from Or as they were taken across the border into Gaza.<\/p>\n

Eight days after his release, Or returned to his home in the settlement of Shiloh in the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council. He was welcomed with cheers, Israeli flags and a motorcycle escort. Residents held signs reading: \u201cThis is the day we hoped for. Avinatan\u2014good to have you home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking upon his return, Or said, \u201cAfter a very long time in the tunnels of Gaza, in darkness, I\u2019m finally here with all of Israel.\u201d He added, \u201cSince we came home, we\u2019ve been receiving love from every corner of the country. I was disconnected for two years, and I\u2019m slowly learning about the unity and love that swept through the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

He expressed deep gratitude to the soldiers who helped secure his release, calling them \u201cthe true heroes of this story. Thanks to them, I\u2019m here today and able to feel all your love.\u201d He concluded with a hopeful message: \u201cI hope we can carry this love and unity forward without needing war to get there. Our strength is in our unity\u2014only love will prevail.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Avinatan Or, a hostage recently freed after more than two years in Hamas captivity, revealed new details overnight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-137552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}