Hamas official told Eitan Mor he would be released two weeks after abduction, ex-hostage recounts

Eitan Mor described how he was starved, beaten and electrocuted during his captivity.

Former hostage Eitan Mor said he met Izz al-Din al-Haddad, the current head of Hamas’ military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, while in Gaza in an interview with the Israeli newspaper. Makor Rishon published Friday.

Mor remembers that the Hamas leader told him at the start of his captivity that he would be released within two weeks. However, he was released after two years in October 2025.

Abduction of Eitan Mor by Hamas on October 7

Mor was working as a security guard at the Nova Music Festival when Hamas invaded the country. He explained that “the terrorists had taken control of all the main roads, but to the right of the square there was a dirt road through which it was still possible to escape.”

“On the way, we had already seen a lot of bodies. We hid and I called my uncle and asked him to call the army. Helicopters flew over us; we tried to lure them towards us, but they continued on their way,” he added.

Mor described how he told Nova attendees not to return to the party grounds.

Despite the emergency situation, Mor explained how he and his friends hid the murdered bodies of young women, fearing what terrorists might do to them.

“Some (of the murdered women) were already half dressed and I don’t know what else they would do with them,” he said. With his former hostage Rom Braslavski, he hid the body of the late 23-year-old Shira Eylon. His body was later discovered in a forest near the festival.

“Then we came to look for another person, who had been seriously mistreated, but we didn’t have time,” he continued.

Five terrorists grabbed Braslavski and two others grabbed Mor, although he was able to briefly escape their clutches after hitting one of them. Despite his efforts to escape, he was apprehended by a group of Palestinians, some of whom were still children, who joined the invasion.

“They had knives, saws, hammers. And they were all hitting me, with everything they had. They were holding a knife to me and I was sure I was going to die now,” he said. “Then the tallest of them said to me in English: ‘Either you die now or you come with us to Gaza.’ I said, “To Gaza.”

After stealing his phone and necklace and stripping him of his shirt, the group of Palestinians hailed a vehicle driven by Hamas and asked the terrorists to take him to Gaza. In the car, they forced him to take photos while chanting “Allahu Akhbar” and beating him.

Eitan Mor’s time in captivity in Gaza

“They beat me, but I was still on adrenaline from all the hours before, so I didn’t feel the pain,” Mor said. “People wrote on Facebook in the comments of this photo that it didn’t make any sense. How is he so calm? Maybe it was a staged kidnapping. But the truth is, at that moment I got it into my head that this is the situation now, and I’m probably going to die, or they’ll cut off my hands, or I don’t know what Hamas is going to do to me there. I prepared for the worst. So I took a few breaths deep to calm me down, and I just waited to see how much shit I was going to eat.

After entering Gaza, Mor described crowds of Gazans eagerly making way for the terrorists transporting him.

After being taken to an office in the direction of Beit Hanoun, Mor described how he asked a terrorist for a cigarette, even though he had stopped smoking years earlier because he thought he was going to die anyway.

While she was smoking the cigarette, the mother of the terrorist who handed her the tobacco came and started shouting at her: “You took our land, all the Jews took our land. You kicked us out of our homes.”

Responding to the woman: “Listen, I didn’t take anyone’s land. What do you want from me?” he described how surprised he was when she later offered him coffee.

“They dressed me like a Gazan, put a hat on me. After about an hour, a gray jeep arrived and took me near the Indonesian hospital,” he said. “Two Hamas members get in the car, one of them insults me, and I don’t understand what he wants. And I dry off in the car, and it’s hot. I didn’t understand Arabic at that time…

“I remember seeing some papers in the car. I asked him in English if I could take some. He looked at me strangely and said, ‘Yes.’

Haddad arrived near the hospital an hour later. “He was wearing a hat and started talking to me in Hebrew. He said, ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be gone in two weeks.’ He took details about me, my name, my father’s name, an identity card, my phone number, my father’s phone number,” Mor said.

It was the first in a series of encounters Mor would share with the lead terrorist.

After this brief encounter, Mor was transported to a warehouse where he remained with his hands tied behind his back for a week.

“They looked at us like monkeys there. They are not used to seeing a Jew, or anyone outside of Gaza in general,” Mor explained.

“I had three tough days with my hands behind my back. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t lie down, nothing,” he said.

“After three days, there was someone with a little more compassion. I told him I couldn’t do it like that, and he made a hole in the wall and tied me to it with one hand. That way I could lie down properly.”

Despite encountering a slightly more compassionate terrorist on the third day, Mor described the brutality he experienced in the days that followed. Another terrorist arrived and stole his expensive shoes before torturing him with electrocution, Mor said. A few days later, the terrorists finally gave him cheaper shoes, many sizes too big.

The situation became more frightening once Israel began its military response to the massacre, Mor said. He nevertheless described the mixed feelings he felt hearing Israeli shelling all night.

“The truth is that I was happy because the bombing at the beginning of the war was very intense. Five brigades arrived in Gaza City. Massive military pressure. It’s very scary… For example, when you sit at night and the army destroys buildings around you, you are just waiting to die,” he said. “Hamas members are also scared to death, but they are less afraid of death. From their point of view, sitting with hostages is great work. They get food and a place to be.”

After a month in captivity, Mor was moved into hiding, where he would later meet Ziv Berman, another hostage taken in southern Israel.

With little else to do, Mor also began learning Arabic from his captors and became fluent within a year.
“They liked to explain how well they, as Muslims, treated the prisoners, compared to others. [National Security Minister Itamar] Ben-Gvir, who treats prisoners badly,” he shared. “I tried to explain to them once that we have murderers in prison. I said it once and stopped, because it wasn’t wise to say it in front of them.

“I learned their manners, the greetings you give when someone sneezes, what you say to someone who serves you food or a cup of tea. Once I spoke Arabic fluently, with an accent, and knew the vernacular words, I saw that they were more connected. That helped me a lot,” he later added.

The terrorists told him to clean and cook, even though the food provided to him was infested with worms, he said. He was unable to shower for weeks and the hygienic conditions in the tunnel were poor.

“Being there is basically accepting death,” Mor described. “I sometimes tried to compare myself to a soldier who goes into battle. All of our soldiers are heroes. But it’s not the same thing. A soldier has the ability to defend himself. Zvi and I talked about it, that we’re just sitting there and we can’t escape and we’re helpless.”

Although he dreamed of escaping, Mor said he knew it was ultimately futile. “Even if you take a gun, shoot someone and go out, the whole neighborhood will be on you. They will kill you in your slippers,” he said.

The food rations distributed to them were slowly dwindling in the tunnels, Mor said. Some days he had only a plate of rice to share among five people, and others, only a “kiddush cup”-sized portion of beans.

After Operation Arnon, conditions became harsher, but once again Haddad met the hostages.

“At some point, Haddad also arrived there. The truth is that he is an intelligent man, an intellectual. He studied the enemy, us, well. He told us, among other things, about how they planned October 7 and showed a very broad knowledge of everything related to the army,” Mor described.

“I admit he knows more than I do, and I think more than most IDF soldiers, about the army. They are obsessed with us. They know a lot. I wish our security services were now as obsessed with them as they are with us.”

Mor’s father’s role in the Tikva forum was also widely discussed among the terrorists, even though they did not let Mor watch his father’s interviews.

“I salute my father. I admire him. Wow, my father is a strong guy. He speaks the truth to his face in a respectful manner. He thinks of the country before thinking of himself. And I want to thank him for being strong for the whole family and for me,” Mor shared.