During the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, 33 hostages or their remains were turned over to Israel. But freedom does not mean the end of their ordeal. Debora Patta got rare access to a health care professional who helps with recovery.

Jerusalem

The United States has joined Israel in striking nuclear targets in Iran. It follows an escalating broader conflict in the region including the ongoing Gaza war.

Iran Strikes

During a period of ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, 33 hostages and their remains were returned to Israel. However, their release does not signify the end of their traumatic experiences. Dr. Ofrit Shapira, a psychoanalyst working with many of these former hostages, has been observing their complex path to recovery.

Many hostages spent a prolonged period in Gaza under the threat of death, a situation that has left long-lasting psychological scars. Some, like Yarden Bibas, faced the devastating news that loved ones had perished during their captivity. Shapira highlights that the trauma primarily arises from the complicated relationship with their captors—a mixture of fear and a need to appease them to survive. This dynamic blurs the lines between identities and creates a significant mental strain.

Former hostages, as reported in Israeli media, describe terrifying conditions, including severe isolation and starvation, which left them physically and emotionally depleted. Analytical insights from Shapira reveal how this ordeal has led to feelings of abandonment and rage toward the Israeli government and military, who they hoped would rescue them. Despite the fractured trust and enduring trauma, Shapira emphasizes that the former hostages' ability to maintain humanity and share acts of kindness under dire circumstances showcases a resilience rooted in love.



Israeli psychoanalyst describes recovery work with freed hostages

These are the images we watch every time a hostage is freed. But Dr. Ofrit Shapira, a psychoanalyst counselling many of them, is seeing something very different. For so long, hostages held in Gaza feared they would be killed in captivity. Now many must learn to live in freedom. It's like a death sentence, only you have to keep on living. Some, like Yarden Bibas, discovered on his release that his wife Shiri and two boys had been killed. I don't think it's a joyful freedom, completely joyful for any of them. She told us the deepest trauma comes from the relationship with the kidnapper, both their potential executor and the person they had to please in order to survive. The bad person and the good person get mixed up in a way that you can't really, well, you can figure out, because it's an imbalance of power. You need to erase whatever makes you, you. An individual with a psyche, with wishes, with thoughts, it just becomes a shadow of something. Some hostages have spoken in the Israeli media about the terror, the isolation, the starvation. You feel your gut stuck to your spine, going inward, and you can't believe what's happening to your body. Abnormal fear, zero sleep at night, the longings are crazy. There is also rage, Shapira told us, towards the Israeli government and their military command, whom they believed would save them. Of course their trust has been fractured. And why has their trust been fractured? Why have they been abandoned? Trauma is when your basic assumptions about the world break. But greater than all the pain, anger and fear, love, I think it's the most important thing. I think all of them managed to remain human. You know, they were starved to death, but they could still share the little food that they got with someone else. Love became their defense, and their reason to live.

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Kyiv

Ukraine Invasion

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Iran Strikes