Former hostage Avinatan Or sent a video to his friends in which he updates them on his condition. He began with a lighthearted comment on his camera: "Wait, is this recording now? I don't know what this technology is. I was cut off for two years. What's up, my dear friends? I'm so happy to see you."
"I saw all of you through the van. What a frenzy. I'm so happy to see you. We'll meet very soon, I believe. I'm fine, tired and exhausted, but soon, very soon we'll meet and we'll make up for all the lost time and I can't wait to see you. I love you, I heard you did a lot for me, I haven't heard everything yet, but little by little."
Yaron Or, Avinatan's father, told Kan Bet this morning (Wednesday) that in the last year his son was shackled to bars inside a cage about 1.80 meters high, and a little longer than the mattress he slept on.
He said that earlier, Avinatan - who is almost two meters tall - was held in a slightly larger space, but also behind bars, without being able to move freely.
"They didn't starve him, but the food was meager," the father said. "He is very thin. Around him were various guards whose relatives were killed in IDF strikes, and I think it's simply a miracle they didn't harm him except once when he tried to escape."
He said his son seized an opportunity to flee while in a tunnel and tried to get out. "These are things he tells us little by little; we don't ask proactively," he explained.
Yaron emphasized that throughout captivity his son was held alone in tunnels, without other Israeli hostages, "without books and without anything. At one point he received a Rubik's cube, apart from that he had nothing. I don't know how he came out sane from that, it's a miracle."
"He understood there was a war, and he thought it had to be finished even at the expense of the hostages," the father said. "He didn't know the scale of October 7, only that they broke into Israel. He told the Prime Minister he thought he would be held hostage for years, that they wouldn't release him until the war ended, and that that's what had to be done. He is a unique young man."
"Physically he needs to regain his strength, but mentally, thank God, it's the same Avinatan, the same sense of humor, the same strength," Yaron stressed. "At least for now, it appears on the surface that in this respect he not only hasn't changed, but has even grown stronger."