842: 51 Days
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Prologue: Prologue
Ira Glass
In Israel last week, Eli Albag wanted to do something about his daughter, Liri, who had been captured by Hamas a year ago when she was 18 and is still a hostage somewhere in Gaza. And so he took a bullhorn and went to stand outside an event that was being held by the prime minister's political party, Likud. Basically, he wanted the people running the country to make some kind of deal with Hamas and bring his daughter home.
And so, OK, he's standing there with his bullhorn, this grieving, worried parent, who doesn't know if he's ever going to see his child again. And someone throws an egg at him, and another egg. Somebody yells and calls him a cancer on Israel. Somebody else accuses him of being funded by Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas.
Man
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Ira Glass
This is not unusual in Israel. The country is bitterly divided between people like these hostage families, who are saying stop the fighting, make a deal with Hamas, bring home the hostages, and on the other side, the prime minister's supporters and his coalition, people running the government, who want to press on with the war and get to a more complete victory over Hamas.
I have an Israeli friend who said to me that this war is different from ones in the past in Israel, because in the past, he said, once the war started, everybody united. This time, it's driven people further apart, to the point where even these anguished families, who you'd think would have universal sympathy in a country at war, are the target of all kinds of hate.
Some other examples-- a real estate mogul, who's also a big Likud supporter, writes tweets that call for the death of the mother of one of the hostages. Or here's a video that was posted online of an Israeli right-winger on a motorcycle, who pulls over next to a group of hostage families and tells them, "You're going to be murdered. I'm going to murder you. Mark my words."
Man
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Ira Glass
So in Israel, supporting the hostages for so many people has come to mean that you oppose the Israeli government and the way that they're conducting the war, and you want a ceasefire and a deal with Hamas. I think here in the United States, we have a different picture of the hostages and what they stand for.
Here, I think there's this feeling that if you support the hostages, you support the war, and the current Israeli government, and the way it's conducted that war, with all the bombings and death. The hostages are a symbol, but a symbol that means different things to different people in the US and Israel.
It's been a year since the hostages were taken. The current conflict with Hamas began last October 7 with the killing of 1,200 people and the kidnapping of 251 others. So much has happened since then, of course. Israel killed over 40,000 Palestinians. 90% of the population, almost 2 million Palestinians, have been displaced from their homes.
This past week, Israel expanded the war to Lebanon with a ground invasion. Iran sent missiles in response, and the White House has been scrambling to try to stop a full-out regional war. At this point, this war is about so many other things than the hostages.
But those 251 people, 117 of them released or rescued, 70 dead, and 64 who are presumed alive and in captivity, are still this symbol. They're on posters that people put up and other people tear down. They're on Bring Them Home bracelets. But they're also people, each having their own personal and specific experience of this war, an experience that politics flattens and wipes away.
Just two weeks after the Hamas attack, very early on, an 85-year-old hostage named Yocheved Lifshitz was released and sent home. And Israelis were pretty excited. They did a press conference from the hospital. She was put on live TV in a wheelchair. Her daughter helped her hear the questions and give answers. Somebody asked, when Hamas released you, why did you shake the Hamas guy's hand? Her reply--
Interpreter
Because they treated us very nicely. My mom is saying that they were very delicate and gentle with them and took care of all their needs.
Ira Glass
Television commentators and newspaper columnists jumped in, calling this press conference a disaster, a propaganda win for Hamas, an embarrassment for the hospital. Mind you, Lifshitz also said a lot of awful things about Hamas in her abduction-- attackers running rampant, beating people young and old. They hit her in the ribs with a wooden pole.
But the story that came out of the press conference was that she said something nice about Hamas. Within a month, the hospital's spokesman who organized the press conference was out of the job. There are certain things that Israelis just did not want to hear right then.
Here at our program, throughout this year, we've tried to document what this war has been for Palestinians and also for Israelis. And this week, a year after those people became hostages, we thought it might be a good time to hear about their actual lived experiences, all the complicated parts that don't fit neatly into some symbolic picture of them.
There are these long interviews that an Israeli journalist, Lee Naim, has been doing with hostages who've been released on a daily news podcast called Echad Bayom-- One a Day. In these interviews, you get to hear them just talking at length. They're not a sound bite, not an image on a poster. You hear what really happened, the complexity of what they went through and what they saw and felt.
One of the things that's especially interesting, I think, to hear is the hostages' stories about their interactions with the people holding them captive, who, I have to say, they come across with way more dimension than I might have guessed.
So, most of this hour, we're going to be hearing from one of the Echad Bayom interviewees, a woman named Chen Almog-Goldstein. And then when we get to the second half of the show, we're going to hear from a few of the other hostages who were interviewed. I hope you stick around. From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Stay with us.
Part One: The Abduction
Ira Glass
It's This American Life. Part one, The Abduction. Just a heads up-- if you're listening with kids, some of this gets intense. So, Chen Almog-Goldstein lived in a kibbutz called Kfar Aza, about two miles from the Gaza border, with her husband, Nadav, and their four children. She and Nadav met in junior high school. She worked as a social worker for a while but then focused on raising her kids.
The morning of October 7, sirens went off, and they went to the safe room in their house. One of the things that a lot of people talk about in these interviews is how mystified they were that the army did not show up. For many Israelis, that is the second astonishing thing that happened that morning, that the military forces Israelis trust to keep them safe didn't arrive for over eight hours for reasons that still haven't been formally investigated.
Chen's family stayed in the safe room for five hours. Then, men entered the house, reached where they were, shot her husband, Nadav, in the chest, she says, right in front of them. Soon after that, they shot her oldest daughter, Yam, in the face. Yam was 20 and home on leave from her mandatory military service. Chen says the last time she saw Yam, she was flailing on the floor.
Then Chen and her three other children were led outside. There was her 17-year-old daughter, Agam, and also her two sons, who were younger, 11 and 9.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
They led us to Nadav's car, first to Nadav's car and then to my car. They tried to start Nadav's car, but his car, when it's starting, it's very quiet. If you don't know the car, you probably wouldn't understand. So they probably thought, it's not working. And they brought the keys to my car, and we got into my car.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
And I'm looking to the bushes, still hoping that maybe someone will signal to me with their finger. Maybe I tell the kids to escape. But on the other hand, it was dangerous. I remember realizing this is very crucial, what I decide right now. I was afraid. They had us now.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
I remember the kids' faces on the way to Gaza, very deep, terrified looks at me. I remember they asked me what happened to my lips, the boys. My lips were probably white. I was shocked. I was completely shocked.
And I'm in the car with the kids on the way to Gaza. And I need to understand and figure out that-- it was really important for me to tell the kids first that Yam is not with us anymore, and Nadav probably isn't as well.
Lee Naim
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] Do the terrorists say anything?
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
They're happy. They're very happy. I remember the driver and the guy next to him, they're filming us. I remember we were putting our heads down, Agam and me. Then they stopped near the fence. It was their fence already because it was after some drive through the fields. And they piled dead bodies on my car. I remember Agam telling the boys to look away.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
And after seven minutes, we're in Gaza. It's unbearable how easy it was and how fast. I mean, first of all, we were in shock. I was in shock.
Ira Glass
Chen said this a couple of times in her interview. The part of what was so stunning about being taken hostage was how quick it was. One minute, she was in her home. Minutes later, she's in Gaza, in captivity.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
I remember like a deserted area. There are papers flying in the air.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
And then they stopped my car. They put us in another car. We drive for a little more. And then a gate opens. The car goes in, and the gate closes.
Ira Glass
They're at a private home. That's where the car stops. Chen say that her kids, till then, had held it together.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
That entire time, the kids were just so, so level-headed. Their conduct was so-- it was amazing. They didn't cry. They didn't do anything dangerous. They didn't yell. They didn't try to hold on to my clothes. I think they even tried to talk to the terrorists, talk to them in English.
Ira Glass
But now, next to this private home, they see the entrance to a tunnel.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
And this is the first time that Tal-- Tal was 9 at the time. This is the first time he's crying. He saw this black hole, and he got scared. Tal cried a bit when he stared at this tunnel, but he calmed down. They brought him water. And that's it. We're going down this tunnel. It's not very deep.
And we meet other hostages from Kfar Aza, an elderly couple, a young guy. And each is telling their own kidnapping story. And we can't believe we're in Gaza.
Lee Naim
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] Can you describe the condition in the tunnel?
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
Sand. There was sand everywhere and also in our mouth. There was a hallway that leads to this small room with some mattresses. There's constant sweeping because there's constant sand. And it's pretty hot there, 27 degrees.
Ira Glass
27 degrees, that's 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
Interpreter
And 27 degrees and very humid, very damp.
Ira Glass
100 kids plus the three other hostages from the kibbutz were kept in the tunnel for two nights, she says. At one point, one of the guards brings a deck of cards to keep the kids occupied. The boys, remember, were 9 and 11. Agam's the oldest, 17.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
And Agam got some sort of a panic attack. She started hyperventilating. She couldn't breathe. And so they attempted to calm her down. They said, you'll be back in Israel by Tuesday. Tuesday, you're back. And this was said on Monday. We were kidnapped on Saturday. And the truth is, I thought so, too. I thought we'll be back by Tuesday.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
We're in Gaza with children. Israel is not going to attack. Israel is not going to do what it always does. First, they're going to free us, and then they're going to figure out what they're going to do.
Ira Glass
On Tuesday, they do leave the tunnel, not for Israel. They're taken to a house next to the tunnel.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
And it's a house that is full of the sounds of kids, babies, women. And there, we can already hear the attacks. Gaza is being bombarded at this point. And then they start prepping us for another move.
Ira Glass
Any move through the streets, where they would be surrounded by Gazans, just random civilians, was always a production because their captors were hiding them from the Israelis, from the general public, from everybody. They didn't want people to know that there were Israeli hostages walking right beside them on the street.
So they put Agam and Chen into full length jalabiyas and hijabs. The two boys, Gal and Tal, got hats. Then, they moved them outside. It's five days into the war. Israel's bombarding Gaza. Chen and her kids see Israeli jets flying overhead.
Chen says she and Agam take all this in and say Fauda to each other. Fauda's a big Israeli TV series, an action show about military special ops in the West Bank and Gaza. They end up in an apartment, where they spend the next five weeks, most of their time in Gaza.
Part Two: Daily Life in Captivity
Ira Glass
Part Two, Daily Life in Captivity. So different hostages say they were held by different militant groups in all sorts of locations and all sorts of conditions. Some hostages who have been released said they were beaten or sexually assaulted.
Chen's family is now in a residential apartment building guarded by two men, who very much wanted to keep them a secret from all the civilians living around them on all sides, which had lots of consequences for the way they lived. Chen remembers it being really hot in that apartment. They had an electric fan, but electricity was only on for an hour or two a day.
Interpreter
So it's very hard without the fan when the windows are pretty much closed. There are heavy curtains on the windows, and we weren't allowed to go near them. We weren't allowed-- they keep opening them, closing them, open, close. They don't want anyone to hear us, even people just in the building or, of course, people on the streets.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
I remember it was very hard for me to fall asleep there. I was always the last one, always tossing and turning because you're sweating there the whole time. Everything is wet. You're just soaked in sweat.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
And there are bombings at night. And at that stage in this apartment where we were, they were still explaining to us, this is bombings from the sky. This is from the sea. This is artillery. And when the house shook, they would move with us, sway with us. And we were on-- I don't know which floor-- maybe fifth?
At that stage, at least, they would say, bida bida, like it's far. You hear the whistle. You know the fall is going to be far. They were trying to tell us it's going to be OK. It's far. They tried to calm us down. They wanted us to be OK.
Ira Glass
Living among the Palestinians, the Israeli hostages suffered through some of the same hardships of the war. Many hostages in their interviews talk about how hungry they were. The captors tried to give them two meals a day.
As the Israeli bombing campaign progressed, of course, and the army rolled in, food and water got harder and harder to get in Gaza, to the point where now Gaza is on the edge of famine, according to the United Nations.
Interpreter
Water, they tried to provide drinking water. You can't drink water from the tap. First of all, there isn't like a steady flow of water. Sometimes there's just a drip, and it's basically salt water.
Bathroom, very difficult. Bathrooms, you can't just flush the water. Maybe we had it in the first two days, but then we couldn't flush the water. There was a really bad smell in the bathrooms.
Ira Glass
When power would come on for an hour, sometimes, she says, they'd get running water. And then they had to decide who could shower-- guards or some of them. Agam, the teenager, really wanted to wash her hair. With all that competition, Chen says, she pretty much gave up on showers for herself.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
I felt very strange in Gaza physically, the whole stay in Gaza. I was very weak. And I kept thinking about what happened at home. I forced myself to remember how I last saw Yam after she was shot.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
Like it was like a form of torture, of self-punishment. Fortunately, over time, as time passes, that image gets blurry. And I remember Yam is beautiful and happy.
But I remember at first, I was really forcing myself to not forget how I saw her. I mean, the whole thing just took seconds, and I ran outside. I ran outside to the kids. I didn't go down to help her. I didn't check on her. I was terrified.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
Looking back now, I realized that in a way, I chose life. I went outside to Agam and Gal and Tal.
Ira Glass
Now, in this apartment, with those three surviving kids, Chen says she was in a constant state of alert to protect them. She says she cried every day, but the captors did not like seeing them cry. She says they wanted them happy, not sad. So she tried to conceal all that.
One night, she says, the apartment started shaking from a bomb that fell nearby, and the guards had them evacuate. They all go into the street.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
There's total darkness. It's 7:00 PM. And Gaza is destroyed. It's devastated. And we're walking outside. We didn't walk long, but we were outside, me and the kids. And all of a sudden, there was fire on us. I see the red lasers and the balls of fire and shooting on us, fire.
Lee Naim
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] From airplanes?
Interpreter
That's how it looked like. It came from above, from the air. And they discuss with us many times the absurdity of the fact that they are protecting us from our own military. We had many conversations with them about it, about how absurd it is. And they would really put it in our faces and kind of laugh about and smile about it. And it would be like, do you understand what is going on here? We are watching you. We are protecting you.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
There was one night, we spent the night in a supermarket, and it was the first time there was an attack right near us on the street. And the supermarket, the whole place shook. And it's like a crazy jackhammer that's just getting closer and closer to you. We already saw all the rocks coming our way. And it's so scary. It feels like the seconds before death.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
And they are, with their bodies, the terrorists, that cell that watch us, they're, with their bodies, on us, covering us on the mattresses, protecting us, from attacks of our own military.
Part Three: The Guards
Ira Glass
The complicated relationship they had with their captors. That's the subject of Part Three, The Guards. In general, the only Hamas members who talk to the media are official spokespeople and leaders. And one of the things about these hostage interviews is that they give a glimpse of lower level operatives, some Hamas, some with other militant groups operating in Gaza who are keeping Israelis hostage. Here's Lee Naim, the interviewer.
Lee Naim
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] At the end of the day, these are the people holding you, and your life depends on them. So, with all the hate, I assume it was very uncomfortable situation. I imagine myself, I want them to like me so I can survive. So how did you manage it? [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
Yeah, we realized our lives are in their hands. We realized they were just a cog in the system, that they're not the people making the decisions. Sometimes I would ask them, if someone gave you the decision to hurt us, would you do that? And they would say, no, we are going to die before that happens. Worst case, we're all going to die together. And that was pretty encouraging to hear.
Ira Glass
Chen says that eventually there were four men guarding her family, who told them they were 28, 30, 37, and 44 years old, three married, two with kids. The youngest had a failed engagement. The oldest was the most religious, Chen said. He would read the most. One of them was learning Hebrew and would ask Agam if she could help him study years or dates.
Lee Naim
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] What was the most surprising thing that you discovered about them?
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
Mm, their sensitivity at times, how much they miss their wives. At some point, one of them wrote a letter to his wife, and it was contagious because then another one wrote a letter to his wife.
Ira Glass
I'm just going to interrupt here because I just want to point out the intimacy of this-- these people locked together in a dark, hot, stuffy apartment, planes dropping bombs around them, who cannot help but notice what the others are doing in this cramped space. It's so personal. But at the same time, they are not on the same team. There's a distance. So when Chen and Agam see them all writing letters to their wives--
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
And it made us really nervous, Agam and I. We were like, why do you need to write letters to your wives right now? Is something going on? Is there something about to happen? One of them said he had an agreement with his wife to put the letter in his pocket, so if they found his body, they find it in the pocket. We saw their pain, sometimes. We could see their pain. We saw them breaking down and cry.
Lee Naim
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] What did they cry over?
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
About the uncertainty of what's going on with their family, whether their family was hurt or no. That was the main thing.
Lee Naim
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] Did they see you as human beings?
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
Yeah, it seems so. Yeah. Yes. I mean, I felt like they really liked Gal and Tal, despite all the harm that was done. And there was harm done.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
Beyond their activity in Hamas, they also had a business of perfumes. And they really showed us. They brought a box with all the perfumes. They wanted Agam and I to check it out, to try it, and tell them what we thought, what we liked. They really showed us the syringes, how they make it with the percentages of the alcohol, how they put it all together.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
We also started having conversations about the roots and the depth of the conflict.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
From their perspective, we were the first ones who murdered. We were the ones who deported and murdered their parents in '48.
Ira Glass
1948, the year Israel became a state. The violence in that period resulted in the deaths of 15,000 Palestinians and the displacement of over 750,000 others.
Interpreter
When the conversation reached those points, that's when we would stop because it would just get too tense. Because we didn't agree with them, but on the other hand, we also didn't know all the facts to argue with them. So we didn't want to upset them too much. We wanted to be OK with them.
Ira Glass
Sometimes, though, Chen couldn't help herself. Like, she says, every time they were moved from one apartment to another, passed from one group of captors to the next, the new ones would always ask, is this the family?
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
And then I needed to explain to them that, yes, you murdered my husband, you murdered my daughter, so this is the family. And then sometimes after that, there would be a silence. And sometimes they would say that if the person who murdered Yam and Nadav did it in vain, like if Yam and Nadav weren't a real threat, that person, on the day of his death, he will be judged. If he killed them in vain, he'll go to hell. If not, he'll go to paradise.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
Sometimes there was this moment of silence, or they would apologize when they realized that their own people, their brothers, killed Nadav and Yam.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Ira Glass
Generally, though, her captors were pretty unrepentant and open about their hopes for the future.
Interpreter
They also told us, we like you. You're a good family. Don't go back to Kfar Azam. We'll come back there again. How many were we last time? Like 3,000? How many people you think we have in our organizations? They ask me and Agam.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
Agam and I would try 20,000, 40,000. So we'll come, they say, in three years. In three years, we'll rebuild, and then 40,000 will come again. They were in euphoria. In the seven weeks that we were there in Gaza, our impression was that they were elated over their success on October 7, and that they planned to come again. We never got the impression that their spirits are being hurt because of the attacks.
Part Four: News from Home
Ira Glass
Part Four, News From Home. There was a radio in the apartment. And sometimes the guards would let Chen and her family listen. But it was an ordeal to get them to agree to that. When the news came on, they would beg to be allowed to listen to 10 minutes' worth.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
A newscast where they didn't talk about the hostages really broke our hearts. We just couldn't accept that they are talking about deepening the fighting, and they don't talk about us. And when we came back, we actually talked about it. And we noticed that ever since, they are making an effort to always, at the top of the hour, to mention the hostages, because we really waited for it every time.
Ira Glass
Listening to the radio, they started to piece together how big the attacks of October 7 had been. They had no idea of the scope. Other hostages said this, too.
One told the interviewer that she was shocked to hear that 75 people from her kibbutz, a fifth of the kibbutz, had been taken hostage. She thought it was just her and the three other people who she'd met in captivity. Chen was listening to a broadcast when her own father came on the air, talking about them.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
And the radio host is saying goodbye and saying, we're sorry for Nadav and Yam. That's when I finally realized that they're not with us anymore.
Ira Glass
Up until then, she'd held out hope that maybe the army had come right afterwards and saved Nadav.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
That was the first time that Gal, who's 12, now is 12, cried. We were really moved to hear my dad on one hand and on the other hand, very, very sad. And still we kept asking for the radio.
Ira Glass
One day on the radio, they heard about the dramatic rescue of a hostage named Ori Megidish by the Israeli military. That news really seemed to get to their guards. The guards started acting very differently.
Interpreter
They started going crazy. They wore their bulletproof vests, and they put their uniforms-- they became more like soldiers. Their stress immediately affected us, was projected on us.
I remember at some point, they were also taking out some sort of grenade, in case someone is going to break the door. And they told us, if they're going to break the door, we're all going to hide in the bathroom together. It was just awful stress.
Lee Naim
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] And the news about Ori, did it encourage you or stress you in any way?
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
I mean, we were jealous of her. We were jealous that they were able to get to her and rescue her. But we also-- we saw what it did to our guards. That's why, after they rescued the last three hostages two months ago, I immediately thought-- I mean, it's a happy thing. Each one is a universe. It's a life.
But I immediately thought, what does it mean for the people still there? Are they being guarded more intensely? Are they being transferred from one place to another now? I was scared. Maybe they're hurting them more. Maybe they're doing something to them now.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Ira Glass
Chen Almog-Goldstein being interviewed by Lee Naim. The story continues. And we hear from other hostages, including one who met the head of Hamas in a tunnel. That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues.
Part Five: Moving Around
Ira Glass
It's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Today's show, 51 Days. A year after the Hamas attack on Israel that started the current war, we're hearing the story of Chen Almog-Goldstein, who was held hostage with three of her kids for 51 days.
And before we get back to her story, I wanted to play you a few clips from some of the other interviews that Lee Naim did with hostages for the Israeli news podcast, Echad Bayom-- One a Day. One of the interviews she did gave a glimpse of life in a tunnel that's very different from Chen's experience.
This is somebody who spent her entire time in captivity in the tunnels, a 78-year-old named Margalit Moses. And to give you a sense of her personality, her captors at some point started calling her the captain, because in that particular group of hostages, she would be the one to suggest things to the guards, like don't cook the potatoes in the morning and then serve them to us hours later. Cook them shortly before we eat them and bring them warm. Put them on a plate with a bit of salt. People like salt on their potatoes.
Margalit says, when she arrived in Gaza, they walked deep into the tunnels an hour and a half or two hours before they arrived at the rooms underground, where she and about 15 people from her kibbutz were held. There were mattresses on the floor and chairs.
Margalit Moses
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
Oh, we had an elegant room, really. We had a room that was covered with ceramics, both the floors and the walls.
Margalit Moses
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
Except for the ceiling that was both curved and painted white with lime. The walls were decorated with a beautiful, delicate design. And high up above, there were drawings of tulips with beautiful green leaves.
Lee Naim
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] How organized and prepared did the tunnels there seem?
Margalit Moses
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
Oh, the tunnels were very, very organized. I walked around even at night. I didn't have that much to do, unless somebody wanted to go to the bathroom, and I helped them.
Ira Glass
Margalit was up all night because she's somebody who needs a CPAP machine to sleep. She brought one with her, but her captors took it. And then she asked a doctor for another one. She said he smiled and laughed and said, we don't have those here. So, she says, she didn't sleep for more than 5 or 10 minutes at a time for nearly two months. So at night, up anyway, she would walk people to the toilet.
Interpreter
So I was walking around at night in the tunnels. And generally, we were only allowed to get to a certain point beyond which they said, you can't go. And I constantly was wondering, what is there that they don't let us go there? Do they have some weapons there? Or-- I don't know what.
Margalit Moses
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
So one night, when I saw that they were all asleep, even that person that was supposed to be awake to supposedly watch over us. So I said, I really have to go see what's there.
Margalit Moses
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
And then I arrive, and I see that there was a splitting of a few tunnels. So I peeked to see into each one what's there.
Margalit Moses
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
Here, there is this one tunnel full to the brim with lots of six-packs of mineral water. So straight away, one bottle here, one bottle there.
Lee Naim
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] You hid them.
Interpreter
Yes. And that's how we had mineral water, at least for a few days.
Ira Glass
She said one tunnel she looked down had mattresses. Others had electrical wires and water pipes. Near their room in the tunnel, there was a kitchenette with shelves for canned food, and there was a group of hostages that were in a room that was mostly open but had some cages, she said, like for prisoners on the side.
Margalit Moses
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
So it was really organized, from their point of view, the tunnels. Numbers, each floor a different color. They sometimes had to walk around with notes that explained to them where to turn because the place is huge.
Lee Naim
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] Maps?
Margalit Moses
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
Maps, yes, maps. We reached minus 5, sometimes.
Ira Glass
Minus 5, five floors down.
Interpreter
When they were afraid there might be soldiers outside, they called us to come quickly, quickly. So we went downstairs quickly. And then we saw minus 5. So just imagine kilometers and kilometers and five floors.
Ira Glass
Incredibly, one day, the second day of their captivity, Margalit says they had a visit from the man responsible for their kidnapping and the deaths of their loved ones, the head of Hamas himself, Yahya Sinwar.
Can I say, I find this to be a completely believable story because nothing dramatic happens in this story at all. Like, if you made up a story like this, the head of Hamas would say something fascinating and revealing, or she would get off some great line. None of that happens. It just seems like he ordered people to bring back hostages. They did. It's the next day, and he wants to see some of them for himself. Here's Margalit's account.
Margalit Moses
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
He entered the room with his entourage. He asked us, do you know who I am? So I said to him, yes, you are Yahya Sinwar. So he opened his eyes big. He was surprised I knew his name. And he said, yes, it's true. I'm Yahya Sinwar. He speaks fluent Hebrew very well. And he said not to be afraid. And they will give us anything we need, and that we are only there to be bargaining chips for prisoner exchange.
Lee Naim
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] How did it feel to hear that from him?
Interpreter
[EXHALES] It's horrifying. The audacity with which he said it with his nose up in the air. For me, it was an unpleasant moment. This arrogance of his humiliates you, and most of us were older people. What is the point of kidnapping older people and putting them there?
Margalit Moses
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Ira Glass
So that's Margalit Moses, who was released around the same time as Chen and her family. I want to play you some stuff from one other interview before we get back to Chen. Ada Sagi is 75 years old, from the same kibbutz as Margalit.
Her life in captivity was very different from Margalit's or Chen's for a few reasons, and one of them is that she speaks Arabic, taught it in middle schools, partly out of an idealistic belief in coexistence and wanting to speak with her neighbors. And so she understood what was being said around her when she was in captivity, understood where she was October 7, when she was driven south to the city of Khan Younis.
Ada Sagi
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
We arrived at a vegetable sorting warehouse at the eastern outskirts of Khan Younis. They unloaded us, took from us some jewelry that I had from my mother, wedding band, and my glasses.
Ada Sagi
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
And I begged them to leave the glasses, because without them, I completely lose orientation. They took it because they claimed that it has a tracking chip in it. And they are petrified by chips.
Lee Naim
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] Did you try to explain that--
Interpreter
Yes, I tried to explain them. What do I have in common with a chip? Well, they said you used to be a soldier.
Ira Glass
They said that to a 75-year-old woman because there is mandatory military service in Israel. So she served.
Interpreter
But when I was a soldier, there was no computer, and there were no chips. They explained that every soldier has a chip. And I said, I wish it was true. If it was true, we would know where everybody is.
Ada Sagi
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
In that warehouse, somebody stood and did the check-in. He was an English-speaking person. He asked for first name, last name, ID number from where we are. And he also was asking for the phone number of the children. Naturally, I invented phone numbers.
Ada Sagi
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
I said, it's like check-in into a hotel.
Ira Glass
Another fact about Ada-- she left her home without putting on shoes. Her captors told her, don't put them on. So she spent her entire captivity barefoot, though she was given a pair of socks in November, when it got colder.
Ada was held captive with another woman from her kibbutz, Meyrav Tal, who's in her 50s, 20 years younger than Ada, not somebody she knew well before this. But the fact that there was somebody else to share this with really defined her time as a hostage and made it easier.
Ada Sagi
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
They put us in the children's bedroom. There were two bunk beds. They gave us the lower beds. I had the drawing of Angry Birds, and Meyrav had the drawing of sweet dreams.
Ada Sagi
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Lee Naim
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] How did you pass the time, you and Meyrav?
Ada Sagi
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
Hours and hours of logic games. And we were playing a crossword puzzle in our heads. We were talking about our family, every child, grandchild. We got to know each other family as if the two of us were sisters.
Ada Sagi
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Lee Naim
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] Did you also share your worries?
Ada Sagi
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
Yes we were very, very much partners in our worries.
Ira Glass
They also talked to their guards. One guard spoke some English, and Ada, of course, spoke Arabic. One of the guards in particular, she says, was very loyal to her and Meyrav. He listened to Al Jazeera and told them what was happening in the news.
Ada Sagi
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
He said all the time that I'm treating you as if you were my mother. I felt that there is some respect. We know that his wife is a midwife at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. He has four kids. He evacuated her and the kids from the home to her parents' home.
Lee Naim
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] Oh, he really told you about himself.
Ada Sagi
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
Yes, he told us a lot. At one time, while he was telling that-- he said, I'm not involved. And I said, what do you mean, not involved? And he said, I'm neither a Jihad nor Hamas, but I want money.
Ada Sagi
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
I ask him, but myself and Meyrav are at your place in the kids' room. You took away our freedom, our basic right, and you say that you are not involved?
Ada Sagi
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
And he said, I want money. I want money for myself and my wife to get visa for us and the kids and fly away from here because there is no future here.
Ira Glass
OK, back to Chen and her family. We are at part 5, Moving Around. One of the things you realize, listening to Chen, is just how much of the experience of being a hostage can be just being moved from place to place, no idea where you are or where you're going or why.
Chen's daughter, Agam, worried every time they were moved that this was the time they were going to be taken somewhere to be killed. When they walk through the streets, they're supposed to keep their eyes down and blend in. The captors gave them fake names to use if anybody tried to talk to them. And they would practice the pronunciation of the names with them to be sure they got them right.
That night they thought they might die in that supermarket, Chen and her kids were moved to an apartment above the supermarket til that building started shaking. It didn't seem safe, and they moved to a mosque for shelter. And then they headed out on what Chen remembers as a long journey through the streets of Gaza, part of it on a donkey cart.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
Eight of us on a donkey, like on a cart attached to a donkey. And the donkey is stumbling.
Lee Naim
And bombing all around?
Interpreter
Bombings, yeah, and roads that would end. And they would have to ask the locals whether we can pass through or not. And then the donkey would need to make a U-turn.
Ira Glass
Finally, they reached an apartment, which she says was still under construction. Maybe a month and a half into their captivity, not long before the end, one of the guards takes Chen and her kids out of the apartment and onto the street.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
Very long walk in the streets of Gaza. We're outside, and for the first time, we see the sun down. And then we get to a school.
Ira Glass
All around the school are Palestinian civilians who are seeking shelter. And Chen and her kids, in their disguises, apparently look like just another displaced Palestinian family needing help.
Interpreter
People were putting all these sheets and putting together these impromptu tents. And there's a lot of people there. And they approached the guy from the cell, and they offer to house us, to host us. He kept saying that people are offering help because they see family with kids. So they offer to help.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
For the first time after six weeks, we're sitting outside, and we're seeing the moon. And Tal is telling me, hey, Mom, look, this is the moon. And there was excitement in the air, too, because there was a feeling of like a ceasefire might be coming.
Lee Naim
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] Did you believe it?
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
Yeah, it looked like-- yes, I wished for it. And then I look at the sky, and I show Tal. And I tell him, look which stars are moving and which stars are staying still because the skies were packed with planes.
And then all of a sudden, people near the school launched rockets, and they were so thrilled with every rocket they launched. And I was immediately scared. Maybe now the planes are going to bomb the school.
Ira Glass
Then she says, the guard who was with them, who had been with them for weeks, said goodbye to Chen, wished them a quick return to Israel, told her to take good care of Agam, and handed her off to the next group of captors. They were told there's no safe place above ground anymore and got taken down into a tunnel, where they met six other hostages, two kids, four women, two of whom are young Israeli soldiers.
Interpreter
They had just finished basic training and a course, and they didn't even start doing their job. Kids, they're like 18 and 1/2, 19-year-olds. Some of them were alone until they got to that tunnel. And some were physically injured, alone. Yeah, some of them went through a lot.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
There was something really powerful about that week in that tunnel. Even though with all the difficulties and even though they seemed to be on edge, we were really there for one another. There was some sort of feminine energy strength in that tunnel.
Ira Glass
The two kids, Ela and Dafna, were sisters, 8 and 15. Their dad and his partner were killed on October 7. And the other women had been taking care of them in Gaza.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
And they're amazing. They showed so much emotional strength also towards the children, Dafna and Ela. And that's something I couldn't handle.
Lee Naim
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] To be there for other kids.
Interpreter
Yes, I couldn't. But the young women, they were there for them. They were with them even before we arrived. So they were the authority for those girls.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
And I was in awe, truly, at how they managed to handle them and be there for them, with their physical injuries and with their emotional injuries, and still try to function, to cook whenever possible, to be there for each other.
I remember one day, one of them had this like panic attack. And she started hyperventilating, and she started going up the stairs. And she sat there on the stairs, and she was crying her heart out. And she was crying. And she just like-- it's like she couldn't breathe.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
And she wanted a moment to herself because all this togetherness can be really intense, too. And of course, we're there for one another. We're helping each other. But it can just be suffocating, too. And you end up craving your privacy and just a moment for yourself and some air and some space.
Ira Glass
This is where Chen and her kids spent the week before they're finally released. They were told during that week, it's going to be soon.
Interpreter
They kept saying Friday. Oh, no, it's going to be Saturday. Oh, no, now it's going to be Sunday. I remember thinking to myself, it's not a big deal, like the absurdity of it. It's not a big deal if I stay here one more day.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
Getting out, I realize I'm going to have to face something very difficult, that I lost Yam and Nadav.
Ira Glass
Yam and Nadav, her daughter and husband, of course.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
And the day of our release came. It was a very nerve wracking day. Saying goodbye to the girls was difficult. They were like, who's going to be released next? Is it going to be the civilians first? The soldiers? I mean, the soldiers kind of understood that it will take a little longer. I mean, they didn't realize it was going to be that long, but they would never imagine they would still be there.
Lee Naim
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] But there were two other women with you, civilians?
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
Yes, they were wounded, but they're still there. Yes, they're still there.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
It was a difficult farewell, also deciding what to say to their parents, what not to say to their parents. They ask us to fight for them. They ask us not to forget them, to go to protest, that we speak to their parents. That, we did immediately. They also told us what to say and what not to say. But everything was with the assumption that they would be released right after us. That still hasn't happened. They are still there.
Ira Glass
Chen and her family were released as part of a deal negotiated by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States, where 80 Israelis, mostly women and children, lots of older people, were swapped for 240 Palestinians, mostly women and children, held in Israeli prisons.
Chen's transfer was broadcast on Israeli TV. And the first stages of it look pretty chaotic, actually. There's a random mass of people crowded on some sidewalk. Cars with hostages pull up one after another. Each hostage is ushered down the sidewalk past all this confusion to another waiting car. It was frightening, Chen says.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
We walk a while from the Hamas vehicles to the Red Cross vehicles. And we're being filmed. It's all staged. And it's like their moment of glory. They're wearing their best uniforms. We never saw these uniforms before.
And I remember asking myself, how did Israel allow this? How could Israel allow our transfer to happen in such a public, exposed place when tons of people were there?
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
We were scared. We were so scared until the end. We already survived this. We're already about to get released. And they had to make it scary for us, all the way to the end.
Ira Glass
Then, the Red Cross vehicles take off in a convoy and drive all the way to the border.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
And then, all of a sudden, like magic, we're being moved to our military. And it was very, very moving.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
That moment was the saddest happiness of my life.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
I knew Nadav wouldn't be there to hug me. I just wanted someone to be there and hug me and tell me, that's it. You're safe now, after everything we've gone through.
Ira Glass
Ada, the hostage, who had been an Arabic teacher, also talked in her interview about that moment right at the end of captivity when she finally made it out and reached the Israeli military forces. It got to her in a very different way.
Ada Sagi
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
There was a group of officers there. There was a white shining tent with everything you could wish for.
Ada Sagi
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
I walked in, and they took me in. And I screamed, where were you on the 7th of October? Not that they deserve it because it was not them, but where the hell were their army on the 7th of October? And I started crying, and they caught me at the moment I was falling down. And I'm not one of those fainters. It was a very difficult moment.
Ira Glass
Chen and her family were filmed in the helicopter that brought them home talking to the crew, getting a tour of the cockpit. Chen says it was hard, getting this very respectful treatment, not to think about how this was the same military that she and her kids had been so scared of in Gaza for so long during the airstrikes. These rescuers were in the same army that might have killed them.
Lee Naim
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] Did you say anything about it?
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
I started talking about when I first came back, because when I was in Gaza, I promised myself that I would talk about it, that I would talk about that complexity. But then you come back and they tell you, don't talk about it as much with the media, not with the international media, of course, because it's not a good look.
And you see here how hard it is. You see people who did a bunch of operations in the military and got to very senior positions, and they're not able-- it's like they can't-- they're unable to come and just say, we're sorry. We're sorry for what you went through on the 7th when you were inside your shelter. We're sorry that we bombed in Gaza when you were there with your kids.
Chen Almog-Goldstein
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Ira Glass
Margalit Moses, the woman you heard earlier who was held in the tunnels the entire time, was released two days before Chen. She got invited this summer by Prime Minister Netanyahu to meet with him and some other released hostages. She wrote this letter as her reply.
Margalit Moses
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
"Hello, Mr. Netanyahu."
Margalit Moses
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
"Thank you for the invitation, but I will not participate in a meeting for the sake of photos and public relations while my friends are rotting in Hamas tunnels in Gaza. With my own eyes, I saw them alive in captivity, and now, due to their second abandonment since October 7, we are receiving them in coffins.
In light of reports that you have thwarted yet another deal to release the captives, I see no reason to attend a meeting with somebody who has demonstrated through his actions that the release of the captives is not a priority and who is abandoning them to their death. I would be happy to meet you at the welcoming event for the 109 captives upon their return to their families."
Margalit Moses
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Interpreter
"Thank you."
Margalit Moses
Margalit Moses.
Credits
Ira Glass
Our program was produced today by Dana Chivvis, Diane Wu, Yael Even Or, and me, with editing help from Nancy Updike, based on interviews from the Israeli podcast, Echad Beyom, a production of N12.
The staff of Echad Beyom who produced these interviews are Lee Naim, Shira Erell, Rom Atik, Yair Bashan, and Guy Enbar. Our Hebrew interpreters were Yael Evan Or, Amira Joelson, and Miriam Kaplan.
The people who put together our show today include Bim Adewunmi, Sean Cole, Michael Comite, Aviva DeKornfeld, Emmanuel Dzotsi, Hany Hawasly, Chana Joffe-Walt, Valerie Kipnis, Henry Larson, Seth Lind, Katherine Rae Mondo, Stowe Nelson, Ryan Rumery, Alissa Shipp, Ike Sriskandarajah, Laura Starcheski, Lilly Sullivan, Christopher Swetala, Marisa Robertson-Textor, Matt Tierney, and Nancy Updike.
Our managing editor is Sarah Abdurrahman. Our senior editor is David Kestenbaum. Our executive editor is Emanuele Berry. Special thanks today to Noa Yachot, Daria Shualy, Etgar Keret, and Sam [? Klein. ?] Also thanks today to the rest of the Echad Beyom staff-- Elad Simchayoff, Adi Hetsroni, Danielle Shahar, and Danny Nudelman.
Our website, thisamericanlife.org. You can stream our archive of over 800 episodes for absolutely free. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life.