{"id":637595,"date":"2026-10-06T01:28:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T01:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/637595\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T01:28:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T01:28:16","slug":"former-hostage-avinatan-or-attempted-escape-during-captivity-in-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/637595\/","title":{"rendered":"Former hostage Avinatan Or attempted escape during captivity in Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ex-hostage Avinatan Or planned an escape attempt during his time isolated in captivity in Gaza after October 7, 2023<\/a>, he told N12’s\u00a0Uvda in an interview on Monday.<\/p>\n

“In the army they always told us, there’s no such thing as a 100% perfect defense, there will always be some weak point,” he explained.<\/p>\n

Or was kept in darkness in a below-ground cell, but according to him he was able to feel around and locate part of a wall of sandbags though which he could feel airflow.<\/p>\n

“That doesn’t happen in a tunnel<\/a>,” Or said.<\/p>\n

For the next six months, approximately, Or dug his way through the sandbags. He used a garbage bag to conceal himself from the security camera, he explained, and used a 60 meter extension cable to dig.<\/p>\n

Or also described a bag he’d prepared with clothing he’d found and a sack on which he’d written the word “Hostage.” He also wrote a will and letters to his parents, in the event that he was killed after his escape.<\/p>\n

However, when he finally broke through the wall, Or was instead discovered and re-captured. Afterwards, he said, he faced torture and much harsher conditions, including starvation and beatings.<\/p>\n

Before his release, Or said, he was confronted by one of the Hamas terrorists who had kept him hostage.<\/p>\n

“Say goodbye to Dad and Mom, meet up with your friends – two, three, four days, a week – then grab a bag, pack, and head to Europe,” he said the terrorist told him. “You know why? Because we will carry out another October 7th. As long as there is a single Jew in the Land of Israel, we will slaughter you again and again.”<\/p>\n

“I looked at him and said, ‘I\u2019m not leaving,'” Or recounted. “He asked, ‘Why?’ and I said, ‘Look at the Gaza Strip<\/a> – everything here is ruin, everything here is death. When the war ends and the crossings open, will you leave for Egypt?’ He said, ‘No.’ I asked, ‘Why not?’ He replied, ‘Because this is my home.’ I told him, ‘Excellent – this is my home, too.'”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ex-hostage Avinatan Or planned an escape attempt during his time isolated in captivity in Gaza after October 7,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[50,59,51,42,12428,43,58,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-637595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-gaza","tag-gaza-hostages","tag-hamas","tag-headlines","tag-hostage","tag-news","tag-the-october-7-massacre","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637595","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=637595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}