Doron Steinbrecher vowed that she would never wear pink again when she made her first public comments in a video after being freed from more than 15 months in Hamas captivity in Gaza. A year ago, she had appeared in a hostage video made by her captors wearing a pale rose-coloured sweatshirt. When the Palestinian militant group Hamas released her last month, she was dressed in a bright magenta track suit and looked pale.
Sitting in front of a camera again took her back to the difficult moments when her captors filmed her in Gaza, Steinbrecher, 31, said in the video, looking composed and smiling at times. “This time, I’m sitting comfortably on a couch with my family watching me in a warm and pleasant place,” she said. Trying to convey that she had not been broken, she said it was important for her to show everyone that “I’m OK.”
With 16 Israelis released since January 19 under a ceasefire deal with Hamas, social media posts and statements from relatives are providing glimpses of the joy and relief of freedom as well as hints of the torment they have endured. Colonel Avi Benov, a doctor and deputy chief of the Israeli military‘s medical corps, told reporters that several of the recently released female hostages had spent the last eight months underground in Hamas tunnels in Gaza. Some hostages who were released in November 2023 have described suffocating humidity in the tunnels that made it difficult to breathe. Benov said the first seven women recently released were all were suffering from “mild starvation,” while some still had shrapnel in their bodies from injuries they sustained on October 7, 2023.
The recently released hostages have remained largely protected from the glare of the media, Medical and mental health professionals say preserving their privacy is essential to the long healing process. Footage released by the military of the hostages’ reunions with close family members have given a sense of the elation surrounding their return. “Dad, I came back alive!” freed hostage, Romi Gonen, 24, shouted into a phone after being reunited with her mother on January 19.