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Human Rights Voices
While the UN devotes its human rights operations to the demonization of the democratic state of Israel above all others and condemns the United States more often than the vast majority of non-democracies around the world, the voices of real victims around the world must be heard.
U.N. Obsession with Condemning
Israel Instead
Ex-captive Keith Siegel and families of hostages attend a Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting at the Knesset, July 8, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
Palestinian Authority/Gaza, July 8, 2025
‘They held a gun to her head’: Released hostage shares new details of Hamas abuse
Original source
Released Israeli-American hostage Keith Siegel on Tuesday gave harrowing new testimony from his time in Hamas captivity, saying he witnessed severe violence and abuse of a female hostage he was held with.
“I was held together with Omri Miran. He has a wife and two small daughters. The separation from the family is excruciating in itself, and that’s without mentioning the violence and abuse,” Siegel said during a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
“They threatened to kill me several times,” he said. “They held a gun to my head, and I also saw hostages who experienced extremely severe violence and had their life threatened.”
“I witnessed them severely torturing a woman who was held hostage,” Seigel recounted. “They held a sharp rod to her forehead, they held a gun to her head.”
“These sights haunt me to this day and it’s getting harder and harder,” he said. “My body returned, but a part of me remained in Gaza, with Omri and Gali and Ziv Berman. They are suffering every minute there.”
The US-born Siegel was kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza during the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack along with his wife, Aviva. While she was freed in November 2023, he was not released until February 2025, during the last ceasefire and hostage release deal.
Siegel shared that he was also in captivity with soldier Matan Angrest, who is still a hostage in Gaza.
“He was seriously injured on October 7 and carries with him the injuries that have not healed to this day,” he said of Angrest. “We had to ask and beg to go to the bathroom. We experienced abuse and violence.”
“Matan was also in the tunnels, suffering from respiratory issues there. In order to keep him alive so that they could exchange him [in a hostage deal], they took him out of the tunnel.”
“Matan fought to retake my kibbutz on October 7 and we must fight to bring him and everyone else back,” Seigel implored the committee...
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