Beaten, threatened and terrified: The trauma of child hostages freed by Hamas
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Transcript
00:00 back in his mother's arms after 52 days in captivity.
00:05 12-year-old Eitan Yahalomi was released by Hamas on Monday
00:09 as part of the temporary truce with Israel.
00:12 For his family, the relief to have him back
00:14 is tinged with concern after learning of the abuse
00:18 he suffered, including being forced
00:20 to watch footage of the 7th of October massacre.
00:24 Hamas forced them to watch horrific films
00:27 that no one wants to see.
00:28 Whenever a child cried, they threatened them with weapons.
00:32 Once in Gaza, everybody, even civilians, beat him.
00:35 We're talking about a 12-year-old child.
00:38 Before she was taken hostage, 9-year-old Emily Hand
00:42 was described as a normal, noisy kid.
00:45 But since her release at the weekend,
00:47 her father says she now only whispers.
00:52 This mother was finally able to welcome back two children,
00:56 Erez and Sahar Kaldaron, aged 12 and 16.
01:00 But as their aunts told our sister channel,
01:02 France Television, the joy is mitigated,
01:05 with their father still in captivity.
01:08 I'm very worried about Ofer, their dad,
01:10 that's left behind in Gaza.
01:13 A few days they were together, but we don't know for how long.
01:17 Their dad, they cannot be better if he stays there.
01:22 These children are free from captivity,
01:25 but it will be a long time before they're free of the trauma.
01:31 They saw the massacre before their very eyes,
01:34 that's the first trauma.
01:35 The second is being kidnapped, being completely removed from life
01:39 with everything you know taken away.
01:41 And the third is more than 50 days in captivity.
01:45 So the only thing we can do with these children
01:47 is to stop all the emotions and get back to rationality.
01:51 At least four more children of around 30 taken hostage
01:55 are still believed to be held in Gaza,
01:58 including a 10-month-old baby.