News/Commentary

Hamas BRANDED Israeli children in case they escaped; horrific hostage details begin to emerge

December 1, 2023 | | Print Article

As the temporary cease-fire in Gaza for the release of hostages and prisoner swaps comes to a close, horrifying details of abuse and the literal branding of children hostages at the hands of their Hamas captors are emerging.

According to Yaniv Yaakov, the uncle of two kidnapped Israeli children, Yagil Yaakov, 12, and Or Yaakov, 16, the boys were branded like cattle on scorching-hot motorcycle exhaust pipes so that they would be easy to identify if they escaped, the Times of Israel reports.

The young brothers were released on Wednesday.

Speaking at an event in North Macedonia with Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, Yaakov said, “They told us stories about what they went through inside Gaza. The stories are horrible.”

“Each child that was taken by Hamas was taken on a motorbike and they took every child, took his leg and put it on the exhaust of that motorbike, so they have a burn so they will be marked if they run, if they escape, so [Hamas] can find them,” he said. “They were drugged, they were treated so badly, but at least they are with us.”

It is unclear which substance the children were given.

The hostages were provided with barely enough food to keep them alive, according to Moran Aloni, whose sisters, Danielle and Sharon, were released along with three of his nieces.

“There wasn’t food every day,” Aloni told Channel 12. “And if there was something one day it was not something you could count on to satisfy you. It kept them alive.”

At times, they were forced to decide whether they should save some of the food they were given for the evening because they didn’t know if more would be given.

Hamas also attempted to demoralize their hostages, telling them that “Israel gave up on them,” Aloni said. “And it was something they felt — that Israel decided arbitrarily to raze everything. They had no idea what was going on.”

Dr. Itai Pessach, Director of Safra Children’s Hospital at Sheba Medical Center, said at a press conference that the testimonies of the freed hostages he is treating are “hard to bear.”

They have “undergone hardship, physically and mentally,” he said.

“I feel the need to make their cry heard,” the doctor stated. “The world needs to know how evil and cruel the behavior of Hamas is.”

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett confirmed on X the branding of Israeli children.

“We now know that Hamas terrorists who held hostage 13-year-old Yagel Yaacov and his brother Or, used a boiling hot motorcycle exhaust to ‘imprint’ a burn on their legs as a way to identify them if they try to escape,” he wrote. “Let me repeat: They took a boiling piece of metal and pinned it to the legs of a helpless 13 year old captive child.”

“Hamas are sadistic monsters,” he stated, “and we’re going to have to kill them.”

When asked by one user for the “source” behind his post, Bennett replied, “The children and their scars.”

“Hamas-led terrorists took about 240 hostages of all ages during the October 7 shock assault when it massacred some 1,200 people in southern Israel, most of them civilians,” the Times of Israel reports.

“A temporary ceasefire agreement, which began on November 24 but collapsed on Friday, saw 105 civilians released from Hamas captivity in Gaza: 81 Israelis, 23 Thai nationals, and 1 Filipino.”

Melissa Fine
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