\u201cThat was the last time I tried,\u201d she continued, noting she attempted to kill herself at least three times while in captivity. \u201cWhen I saw the drone footage and understood that people who I don\u2019t know are fighting for me as if I were their sister or daughter, I have a duty to return to Ariel and my family, but also to those fighting for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/F250906CG14-640x400.jpg\")
\n\t\tThousands attend a protest in Jerusalem calling for an end to the war and the release of all hostages from Hamas captivity on September 6, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg\/FLASH90)<\/p>\n
Torn apart<\/p>\n
Cunio and Yehoud, self-described \u201chigh school sweethearts,\u201d were kidnapped together from their shared home at Kibbutz Nir Oz during the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel that sparked the war.<\/p>\n
Yehoud was released after 482 days in captivity during a truce in January 2025, while Cunio was returned<\/a> as part of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal reached in October.<\/p>\n Cunio recalled the terror of their abduction and being torn apart once they entered Gaza.<\/p>\n \u201cI told her, \u2018The most important thing is that we stay together. As long as they don\u2019t separate us, we\u2019ll be okay.\u2019 Half an hour later, that is what happened,\u201d Cunio said. \u201cIt happened so fast, there wasn\u2019t even time to say \u2018I love you, be strong.’\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t manage to tell him bye, I didn\u2019t get to see his eyes,\u201d Yehoud added.<\/p>\n While many of the 251 hostages were held together in small groups by Hamas, both Yehoud and Cunio were held by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which kept them separate and alone.<\/p>\n \t Cunio described the isolation that he felt during his captivity. \u201cI was completely alone for two years, I never saw a single captive,\u201d he said. \u201cHave you ever wondered if you\u2019ll see the sunrise tomorrow?\u201d<\/p>\n He said that after being captured, he was first taken to a residential building, before being transferred and held in a crawlspace above the ceiling of a store.<\/p>\n \u201cI was there for about three and a half months, hunched over all the time, with mice walking around you, cockroaches, and you sitting on a mattress all day. The windows are closed, the door is closed all day,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause of the heat, you don\u2019t even have air to breathe. Even though you\u2019re not underground, you don\u2019t have air. You feel suffocated, the heat is so intense that you sweat 24\/7 for months. You\u2019re dirty, your skin turns black, a rash on your body, from head to toe.\u201d<\/p>\n Additionally, because he was held above a busy street, he had to remain quiet at all times, otherwise he would be threatened with being handed over to Hamas and being forced into the tunnels.<\/p>\n Letters and notes<\/p>\n Cunio said that after repeatedly pressing his captors for information on Yehoud, they told him to write a letter, which they ended up passing along to her, leading to a period of a few months in which they were able to correspond.<\/p>\n Yehoud said that she was shocked to receive the first letter, and that her captors told her that Cunio \u201cdrove them crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a lot of writing about the love between us, what was going on with us each day, our conditions, trying to get some sort of picture of what is going on outside,\u201d he said in the interview. \u201cShe wrote to me in the last letter that she heard there was a massacre at Nir Oz and that we need to stay strong about what we will discover when we get out, because you don\u2019t know anything. You don\u2019t know if your family is living, who is dead, who was kidnapped.\u201d<\/p>\n \t However, they weren\u2019t able to keep up the communication. Yehoud described how the letters became shorter, \u201cmeaning they became a small note like this: \u2018I\u2019m fine, I love you.’\u201d She added she wasn\u2019t allowed to write more than that.<\/p>\n \u201cThey told me, \u2018No more letters, you don\u2019t ask about him anymore,’\u201d Yehoud continued. \u201c\u2018We will kill you, we will kill him.\u2019 That\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n She added, \u201cWe\u2019re not the same people and we\u2019re still trying to find our new path as a couple.\u201d<\/p>\n Terrified<\/p>\n In a separate interview with The Daily Mail<\/a>, Yehoud described her harrowing release and her fears that even as she was being set free, she would be captured by other gangs in Gaza.<\/p>\n Yehoud was released as one of seven hostages handed over during a long process in southern Gaza\u2019s Khan Younis, one of the most chaotic handover ceremonies that saw her and Gadi Mozes paraded through a seething mass, including hundreds of masked gunmen.<\/p>\n \t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/WhatsApp-Image-2025-10-13-at-17.41.26-640x400.jpeg\")
<\/a>
\n\t\tReleased hostage Ariel Cunio and former hostage Arbel Yehoud reunited on October 13, 2025 (Courtesy Hostages Forum)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/AP24341484759099-640x400.jpg\")
\n\t\tThe home of Ariel Cunio and Arbel Yehoud, who were taken captive into Gaza by Hamas terrorists in their October 7, 2023, attack, in Kibbutz Nir Oz, southern Israel, December 5, 2024 (AP\/Ohad Zwigenberg)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/AFP__20250130__36WN6PK__v8__HighRes__TopshotPalestinianIsraelConflictHostage-640x400.jpg\")
\n\t\tPalestinian terrorists surround Israeli hostage Arbel Yehoud to hand her over to a Red Cross team in Khan Younis on January 30, 2025. (Eyad BABA \/ AFP)<\/p>\n