'Now they understand': Family of Ethiopian Israeli Avera Mengistu opens up about struggle during his 11 years in Hamas captivity

While the media has been full of stories from the hostages and their families after 251 were kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, the Ethiopian Israeli who has been languishing in Gaza since 2014 has often been overlooked. Now his family is speaking out about the pain of silence and uncertainty for so long, and the importance of closing the circle.

Avera Mengistu, then 28 years old, imprudently crossed over the border into Gaza on Sept. 7, 2014. His mental health had deteriorated following the death of his brother in 2011, and after refusing to take his medication, he clambered over the fence leaving behind a bag with slippers, a towel, and a few books, including a Bible, according to Human Rights Watch.

He was then held hostage there by Hamas until February last year, when he was released with others taken captive by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.

Gil Elias, a cousin of Mengistu who for years pushed for his release, spoke to Ynet News about what his family has been going through for over a decade. Now he feels the whole nation finally understands some of their pain.

“Before October 7, the issue of captives was barely part of the public conversation,” Elias said. “After Gilad Shalit, a kind of red line formed around the issue. People preferred silence. Avera, Hisham al-Sayed, Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul – they were there for years, and hardly anyone talked about them.” 

However, the Hamas kidnappings changed everything for the family of Mengistu. Hostage Square in Tel Aviv was filled with people who understood. “Suddenly, people in the square came up to me and apologized. They said they hadn’t been there for us. Suddenly, they understood what it means to live with this kind of uncertainty. Before that, we were alone. There was no support system. The hostage families gave me strength,” Elias said.

“When everyone talked about how important it is to close the circle, how meaningful it is to have a grave to visit, it kept hitting me,” he said. “I know what that absence is like, what it means to live without certainty.”

Elias explained that the whole family had made the treacherous journey to Israel from Ethiopia via Sudan when he was a child. “About 4,000 people died on that journey,” he said, explaining that three children in their family were among that number. “Six siblings set out and three arrived,” he recalls. “I was seven or eight years old – it’s impossible to know exactly, because my ID lists ‘00’ as my birth date.”

“We have no grave to visit, we didn’t say Kaddish, we didn’t hold a memorial. My mother still mutters to herself while cooking about the pain and about there being no grave. They matter. They are part of our lives.” They still don’t know where the children were buried – an unknown that only compounded the lack of information on the missing Mengistu.

Initially, Mengistu seemed to be in a very bad mental state on his release, barely able to interact. Now Elias says he visits his cousin every few weeks and is seeing some progress.

“He’s still in rehabilitation, in a residential care facility. Slowly, he’s starting to understand that many people know who he is, and he doesn’t understand why. He has a great sense of humor. He calls Hamas's Nukhba fighters ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ because of the green bandanas on their heads,” Elias reported.

Silence has been the experience of Mengistu’s family during his long captivity, and something also reflected in his choice not to speak about what he suffered on his return. 

“He can say that he crossed the fence, that they caught him and moved him from place to place,” said Elias, “but he doesn’t talk about tunnels or abuse. That’s probably a defense mechanism. But his behavior shows he went through very hard things. At first (after his release), for example, if no one explicitly told him ‘eat,’ he wouldn’t eat. That’s how they conditioned him there.”

Over the years that Mengistu was held in Gaza, an avalanche of technological advances came to Israel that he now has to get used to. “Smartphones, WhatsApp, the Rav-Kav transit card – everything changed. At first, he wanted to buy a paper bus ticket. Even cigarette packs – they used to be colorful, now they aren’t," Elias explained, painting the picture of the challenges his cousin has had to deal with. "Avera will need support and guidance for the rest of his life. He left as a person with mental illness and returned with additional trauma and anxiety," he adds.

“I’m exhausted," he admitted. "More than 10 years, Avera took almost everything from me. One day, I opened my closet and realized I didn’t have any regular clothes – everything was clothes from the struggle for Avera. I want to breathe, but the reality in this country doesn’t really allow disengagement.”

The contrast between Avera’s story and that of Gilad Shalit, a soldier held for five years in Gaza, has highlighted a difference in treatment when it comes to Israel’s minorities that has not gone unnoticed by the family.

“We were told, ‘Avera crossed the fence. What do you want from us?’ He was blamed. But this was a serious military failure. How do you let a civilian cross the fence?” He asked. “A normative person doesn’t cross a fence and end up in Gaza. But because he is a person with mental illness, from the periphery, from a marginalized population, it was easy to ignore him.”

Though marginalized in Israel, Elias clarifies that they didn’t come to Israel out of poverty, but out of love for Israel. 

“In Ethiopia, we had everything. We didn’t come because it was bad – we came out of Zionism. We paid a heavy price, lost three siblings, and still my parents fulfilled a dream. So there is hope.”