Eitan Yahalomi, age 12, was one of the nine child hostages released from captivity on Monday night. On Tuesday his aunt, Devora Cohen, revealed that Eitan was tortured while in captivity.
Cohen told the French BFM TV news outlet that Hamas terrorists forced her nephew to watch harrowing videos of the massacre that they enacted on Israeli civilians during the October 7 attack.
She also said that Eitan was beaten by Gaza civilians when he first arrived after being abducted by Hamas terrorists, and that they threatened Eitan with a gun when he cried.
“He experienced horrors,” she said bluntly, speaking to the news outlet.
The child holds both French and Israeli citizenship.
“Every time a child cried, they threatened him with a gun to keep him quiet. When [Eitan] arrived in Gaza, all the civilians, everyone hit him. We’re talking about a 12-year-old child!”
Eitan was also forced to watch “the horror film” footage of the terrorist group’s atrocities during its attacks in southern Israel on October 7.
“Yesterday we were so happy [that he was freed] … but now, when I know that, I worry,” Cohen said. “It’s unimaginable. I don’t know who can do things like that.”
Eitan was welcomed back into Israel at the Kerem Shalom crossing point by his mother Batsheva, 52 days after he was kidnapped from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz. His father was shot by the terrorists while protecting his family during the invasion, and then he was dragged into Gaza as well.
Eitan’s father’s whereabouts and condition remain unknown.
TPS contributed to this report.
