I’m not sure what CNN’s Christiane Amanpour was thinking today. Even as the 20 living Israeli hostages were being reunited with their families after two years of captivity, starvation and sometimes torture, Amanpour off-handedly commented that the hostages may have been treated better than the average Gazan.
Her thinking seems to have been that Hamas was treating the hostages with extra-care because they were bargaining chips. This flies in the face of reporting which says the hostages were being staved, sometimes kept underground in cages, at risk of being raped by their captors, etc. Israel’s foreign ministry called Amanpour’s words “Hamas propaganda on steroids.”
Since Amanpour doesn’t seem to remember, here are a few accounts of released hostages.
Last year, Israel rescued a group of 4 hostages. They had also been starved and beaten.
The four Israeli hostages rescued during a daring military operation over the weekend were starved and beaten “almost every day” by Hamas terrorists during their eight months in captivity, their doctor has revealed.
Noa Argamani, 26, Almog Meir Jan, 22, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv, 41, suffered the horrific abuse after they were all kidnapped from the Supernova desert rave during the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks.
“It was a harsh, harsh experience, with a lot of abuse, almost every day,” Dr. Itai Pessach, who has been treating the freed hostages at the Tel Hashomer Hospital in central Israel, told CNN.
Amit Soussana was sexually assaulted during her captivity.
Ms. Soussana said she was held alone in a child’s bedroom, chained by her left ankle. Sometimes, the guard would enter, sit beside her on the bed, lift her shirt and touch her, she said…
Around Oct. 24, the guard, who called himself Muhammad, attacked her, she said.
Early that morning, she said, Muhammad unlocked her chain and left her in the bathroom. After she undressed and began washing herself in the bathtub, Muhammad returned and stood in the doorway, holding a pistol…
Ms. Soussana, 40, is the first Israeli to speak publicly about being sexually assaulted during captivity after the Hamas-led raid on southern Israel. In her interviews with The Times, conducted mostly in English, she provided extensive details of sexual and other violence she suffered during a 55-day ordeal.
I could go on and on with reports from former hostages about the abuse and deprivation they experienced. The idea that they were well-treated by Hamas is a fantasy.
Amanpour must have realized that her comments were indefensible, because she actually apologized for them a short while ago.
Earlier live on air, I spoke about what a day of real joy this is, for Israeli families whose loved ones are finally being returned from two years of horrific Hamas captivity, and for civilians in Gaza, who have finally had a reprieve from two years of brutal, deadly war.
I noted that for the hostages who are finally home, it will take a long time for them to recover mentally and physically.
But I regret also saying that they may have been treated better than many Gazans because Hamas used these hostages as pawns and bargaining chips.
It was insensitive and wrong.
From speaking to many former hostages and their families, like everyone I’ve been horrified at what Hamas has subjected them to over two long years.
They’ve told me their stories of barely being able to breathe in the tunnels, not being allowed to cry, being starved and made to dig their own graves – and of course today, some of the hostages are coming back in body bags.
Her apology is fine but it does make you wonder how, if she knew all that first hand, she could have said the opposite just a few hours ago. So which comments represent her real opinions, the ones she made off-handedly earlier today or the ones she had to read from a teleprompter because there was a backlash and her bosses ordered her to fix it?
