Freed Israeli Hostage Confirms Hamas Held Captives in Gaza Hospitals

An Israeli woman taken captive by Hamas on October 7 and later freed confirmed that she and other hostages were held against their will at a Gaza hospital where she underwent “psychological warfare,” further confirming Israel’s assertions that the terror group uses civilian institutions in Gaza, including hospitals, for terrorist infrastructure.

In an interview with CNN published on Thursday, freed Israeli hostage Doron Katz Asher described her harrowing experiences during and after Hamas’s brutal attack on October 7, the deadliest attack against Jewish people since the Nazi Holocaust.

The massacre, which drew parallels to scenes from the Nazi-era Holocaust, resulted in more than 1,200 dead inside the Jewish state, over 5,300 more wounded, and at least 241 hostages of all ages taken — of which more than 130 remain captive. The vast majority of the victims are civilians and include dozens of American citizens.

Asher — along with her young daughters, Raz, 5, and Aviv, 2, and other hostages — were initially taken by Hamas terrorists from their community in Southern Israel. Asher was shot in the back, her daughter Aviv in the leg, and her mother was killed during the massacre. 

She described being kept first in an apartment in Gaza, where her wounds were stitched without anesthetic, and later being moved to a hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis — where she and her daughters remained for nearly five weeks.

Asher called it a “so-called hospital” because, in her words, a hospital is a “place that is supposed to take care of people, but instead, it was taken over by Hamas, and they used it to hide hostages.”

She also called out Hamas’s stunt of attempting to portray hostages as having been treated humanely during captivity when they were filmed during their release.

“It’s one big show,” Asher stated. “Before I was released, my girls and I were barefoot for 50 days. We were cold because they were wearing short sleeves in November.” 

However, before being handed over to Red Cross staff, Asher said they were given shoes, and Hamas terrorists “put me in a nice dress.” 

After enduring nearly 50 days of captivity, “psychological warfare,” and minimal medical care, she and her daughters were finally released during a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. 

Asher’s account highlights Hamas’s use of hospitals to hide hostages, aligning with Israeli military claims that the Islamic group uses civilian institutions in Gaza, like hospitals, for terrorist infrastructure, a claim Hamas denies. 

The U.S. has also accused Hamas of using the Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest, as a command center and a place to hold hostages. In fact, according to new American intelligence declassified on Tuesday, the confirmation of Hamas’s use of the hospital for such purposes by U.S. intelligence led to the controversial Israeli raid on the complex in November.

RELATED: Drone Footage Reveals Tunnels Under al-Shifa Hospital Allegedly Used by Hamas

Asher was not the first freed hostage to attest to being held in a Gaza hospital. 

Maya Regev recently described being held in one, along with another Israeli, surrounded by complicit medical staff. 

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has also revealed surveillance footage of Hamas bringing hostages from Israel into Gaza and the hospital, as well as intelligence showing that the terror organization uses hospitals to hide its facilities and to hoard fuel that it denies to the civilians of the Gaza Strip.

RELATED: Hamas Caught on Phone Call Admitting Stealing Fuel from Hospitals

Israel Defense Forces

Observers noted that such footage presents a serious issue for the International Committee of the Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations, which essentially turned a blind eye as terrorists abused Shifa and other hospitals.

Shifa Hospital has long been known to act as a refuge for Hamas leaders ever since the first conflict, known in Israel as Operation Cast Lead, in 2008-2009. They have also used the hospital to torture and kill political dissidents, according to a 2015 report by Amnesty International.

Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari of the IDF Spokesperson’s office said in a briefing released to journalists that Hamas is “cynically using hospitals as a shield for its underground terror complex” while emphasizing that Shifa was just “one of many” hospitals abused by Hamas to protect its leaders, weapons, and infrastructure “precisely because they know the IDF distinguishes between terrorists and civilians.”

In November, the IDF released a video showing evidence that the Palestinian Hamas terror organization used the Al-Rantisi Hospital for Children in western Gaza to house weapons and perhaps hostages.

WATCH: IDF Shows Hamas Infrastructure Inside Children’s Hospital

Israel Defense Forces

In December 2023, 70 Hamas terrorists emerged from the Kamal Adwan Hospital, weapons in hand, after an intense firefight with IDF troops in the Beit Lahiya area of northern Gaza, having used it as a base for military attacks, in stark violation of international humanitarian law.

In addition, the hospital’s manager, Ahmed Mohammed Hassan Al-Kahlot, told interrogators that Hamas terrorists had commandeered the hospital and forced staff to do their bidding, believing that the IDF would not strike there.

Former Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman has pointed to Gaza’s Shifa Hospital, “where the hospital director and other senior doctors helped the terrorists hide hostages and turn the hospital into a haven for terrorists,” as further evidence of cooperation between the Palestinian population and Hamas.

“But it’s not only in hospitals that you find collaborators; it’s also in private homes of Gazans, including a reported case of a UNRWA employee, where hostages were held in terrible conditions,” he noted.