DIMONA, Israel (AP) — During the two years he was held captive in Gaza, Segev Kalfon had a recurring dream: Walking slowly through a supermarket, browsing each aisle for his favorite foods, admiring the brightly colored packages and smells.
Since he was freed on Oct. 13, his dreams have turned upside down: Most nights when he closes his eyes, he is back on a dirty piece of foam mattress in the 2-square-meter (22-square-foot) room in a Hamas tunnel where he was held with five other hostages, counting every tile and distracting himself from physical torture to physical entertainment.
“I was at the lowest place a person can be before death, the lowest. I had no control over anything, when to eat, when to shower, how much I wanted to eat,” Kalfon, 27, said.
Now that he has returned home to Dimona in southern Israel, Kalfon is trying to piece together a post-captivity life. He spends most of his time juggling appointments with a series of doctors and psychologists.
One of the strangest aspects of his release, Kalfon said, is that for two years his entire life revolved around trying to please his captors so they would share more food or spare a beating. Now that it’s out, “everyone’s trying to please me,” he said.
From a family bakery to a Hamas tunnel
Before being taken hostage at the Nova music festival, Kalfon worked at his family’s bakery in the city of Arad and studied finance and investments.
When the rockets started flying at the start of the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, Kalfon said he and his closest friend tried to help others escape the festival. Kalfon remembers praying with a group of people who had taken shelter in a yellow dumpster, telling them to come with him, that they were in a death trap. For two years, Kalfon wondered what happened to them. After his release, he learned that they had all been killed.
Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people and took around 250 hostages during their cross-border attack that day. The ensuing Israeli offensive killed more than 71,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its numbers. The ministry is part of the Hamas-led government and maintains detailed casualty records that are generally considered reliable by UN agencies and independent experts.
While in captivity, every moment “felt like an eternity,” Kalfon said. The only thing that broke the monotony was a meager portion of food and water once a day.
There were so many times when he felt close to death: during the frequent bombings by the Israeli army, going through COVID and other diseases without medicine, enduring hunger and frequent physical torture. He said his captors used bicycle chains as whips and beat the hostages while wearing large rings to leave painful marks.
“We didn’t even have the energy to shout, because no one can hear you,” he said. “You’re in a tunnel 30 meters underground; nobody knows what’s going on.”
The worst was the last three months of captivity, Kalfon said, when he was kept in isolation and felt like he was losing his mind.
In the darkest places, faith brings a ray of light
Both Kalfon and his family, advocating in Israel for his release, continued to turn to their Jewish faith to get through the dark times. Kalfon’s family filled their homes with additional Jewish books, ritual objects and prayers from elderly rabbis.
Kalfon and the other five hostages made a tradition of marking the beginning of Jewish holidays, or the Sabbath, by saying prayers over some water and moldy pita.
The hostages used a square of precious toilet paper, where one roll was supposed to last six people for two months, for the ritual cap that Jewish men traditionally wear during prayers.
A radio that the captors had given the hostages in the hope of converting them to Islam through recordings of the Koran sometimes allowed them to pick up Israeli news signals.
Once, when Kalfon was at his lowest ebb and contemplating an escape attempt that would probably have resulted in his death, he turned on the radio and heard his mother’s voice. He said it felt like a divine message to hold onto a little longer.
“I was living in a dead person’s body, I was living in a grave,” Kalfon said. “To come out of this grave is nothing short of a miracle.”
Kalfon was released along with 19 other hostages alive as part of a US-brokered ceasefire. He considers US President Donald Trump a “messenger of God”, certain that no one else could have stopped the fighting. His family hung nearly a dozen American flags around the house in recognition of the U.S. contribution to his return.
“The War Begins With My Soul”
Since his return, Kalfon has been adjusting to a new life, one in which he is famous after his name and face were broadcast in Israel during the struggle to free the hostages.
“Everybody wants to support me and say, ‘You’re such a hero,'” Kalfon said. “I don’t feel like a hero. Every person would like to survive.”
Kalfon knows he has a long journey to recovery after years in captivity and a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder before he was taken hostage.
“Although the war in Gaza is over, now my war begins with my soul, to try to cope with thoughts that are very difficult,” he said.
He tries to keep his schedule busy to distract himself.
“But every night when I’m alone, he shows up,” Kalfon said. Even a small noise can wake him up and send him into a terrifying flashback, so he barely sleeps.
For the immediate future, she wants to share her story more widely. He said he has been shocked by the rise in global anti-Semitism and anti-Israel fervor since he was captured and wants to make sure people hear his story, especially those who have torn down hostage posters or accused Israel of lying.
“I’m proof that it happened,” he said. “I felt it with my body. I saw it with my own eyes.” ___
Associated Press writer Sam Mednick contributed from Tel Aviv, Israel.